


Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Horror Edition

by The_Fourth_Catalyst



Category: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Comedy, Dark!Wonka, F/M, Fantasy, Horror, Parody, Psychological Horror, Will involve scenes of gore and blood, Willy Wonka is a killer, be warned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-03-02 00:55:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13306995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Fourth_Catalyst/pseuds/The_Fourth_Catalyst
Summary: All the world has ever known is the most famous chocolatier and candy inventor, Willy Wonka who owns the biggest chocolate factory in history. Young Charlie Bucket, who lives with his poor family, has always wished for a miracle to happen. Soon, Wonka announces a worldwide contest to find five lucky children to find five golden tickets. Eventually, Charlie finds one as well, but needs to visit the factory without adult supervision for some reason. Soon he and the four other children discover that there's more to Wonka than meets the eye. It soon turns into a cat-and-mouse game-style fight for survival as the four naughty ticket winners must work together with Charlie to not only escape the factory alive, but face their inner demons.





	1. The Bucket Family

This is the story of a regular, but cheerful young lad who was named Charlie Bucket. He lived in a shady English town with his family in their small, shabby and somewhat rickety house sitting all by itself. His family consisted of his parents and four of the grandparents. There was the parents of his mother, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine and the parents of his father, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina. Because they were so old and fragile, they sat in one large bed together, given they have been bedridden for as long as they could remember. Grandpa Joe and Grandpa Josephine sat on the left side of the bed while Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina sat on the right side of the bed. Charlie and his parents slept in the other room on mattresses on the floor. Charlie’s father worked at the local toothpaste factory. He sat by the conveyor belt and screwed caps on the tubes after they’ve been filled. The hours were uncomfortably long and the minimum wage was hardly acceptable by standards. Not enough to help support his family. His mother was a stay-at-home type of person who looked after her family, one member at a time.

Now Charlie wasn’t stronger or faster, but he was smarter than other children. He and his family never had any good food to eat like other people. While the rest of the children got to have delicious sweets like chocolate and sodas, all Charlie got to eat was cabbage soup. Nevertheless, nothing was more satisfying as cabbage than cabbage. But the one thing that Charlie Bucket longed for and was most desire to eat was chocolate.

Everyday on his way home from school, he would pass the local candy shop of the town with stacks of chocolate bars and lollipops and cookies all stacked up in the windows. But he had very little pocket money to buy any. Of course, every year on his birthday, he would get a slab of chocolate. But having chocolate only once a year was like torture. It was just torture not having enough chocolate. It was torture to see other children have their share of chocolate while he just watched. It was torture not even having so much as a ten pence to buy chocolate for himself. But the one that was the most torturous of all was just miles down the block.

In the very town he lived in, sitting just a mile down the street away from his house was the _biggest_ chocolate factory in the history of chocolate factories in the entire world. The most mysterious and most famous chocolate factory Charlie could feast his eyes upon. But it was no ordinary factory. This chocolate factory was owned by the greatest, legendary candy maker, Willy Wonka!

A chocolatier as he was so called because he loved making the sweetest, creamiest and most delicious chocolate that you could ever eat! But it wasn’t just chocolate he made. Oh, no! He made other assortments of candy and confectionery of his own design, brand and flavor. Nothing than any living human on the planet could ever resist. Yes, he was the toast of the whole world. A celebrity, an icon, a role model, etc. Every candy shop in the world wanted in on Wonka’s legendary candy.

Charlie Bucket would stare upon the giant foundation of the factory itself with looks of awe and amazement and get a whiff of that sweet scent of chocolate that drifted from the factory and got caught on the wind for everyone to smell; enough to make your mouth water.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” cried an elderly voice, making Charlie turn right around to face an gentleman no older than any of his grandparents staring back at him with a haunting frown on his face, making Charlie feel uncomfortable.

“Uh...yeah. It sure it.” Charlie nodded nervously in agreement.

“Home of the world’s most successful confectioner.” The man replied, approaching the front gates where Charlie stood. “Every damn year, he’s the talk of everything. Never has he disappointed. But no one has ever seen him in person.”

Charlie stared at the stranger with listening ears and curious eyes as he continued.

“Never once leaves his precious factory. Nobody ever goes in and nobody ever comes out. Ever.”

And with that, the strange man gave him a final warning glance before departing down the sidewalk away from Charlie, leaving the boy to ponder over his words. Charlie looked back towards the factory as the smoke arose from the chimneys.

That evening, the Buckets were nestled in their shared bed together as they were many days before while Mrs. Bucket was preparing cabbage soup and Mr. Bucket was at the table reading through the paper. Their house had seen better days as it wasn’t very sturdy or protective as everyone else’s houses were. During the summer, it would get day around the house. When it rained, it leaked through some hole and cracks on the roof. At winter, their only source of heat was the fireplace. They couldn’t afford a furnace or an air conditioner. As the soup was nearing it’s preparation, Charlie arrived through the door.

“Evening, everyone.” Charlie greeted.

“Evening, Charlie!” greeted back the Buckets.

“So how was your day?” asked Mrs. Bucket.

“The usual.” answered Charlie, putting his satchel away to sit at the table.

“Soup’s almost ready, darling.” informed Mrs. Bucket.

“The best of the best.” Mr. Bucket smiled, looking up from his paper.

“I’ve been meaning to ask.” began Charlie.

“Yes?” The grandparents asked encouragingly.

“Is it true that Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is the best thing in the world?” asked Charlie.

“Well, yes!” Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine at the same time.

“He’s quite the candy maker.” expressed Grandma Georgina.

“Is it true that Willy Wonka is the best chocolatier ever?”

“Only the best!” exclaimed Grandma Josephine.

“Really?” smiled Charlie.

“Yes! Of course, it is!” chirped good ol’ Grandpa Joe. “Why, he’s the biggest thing since Hershey’s and Kit-Kats. Haven’t I ever told you about Wonka before?”

“I’m afraid you haven’t, Grandpa.” said Charlie.

“Holy moly, where has my head been?” Grandpa Joe gave himself a joking facepalm, mentally scolding himself for keeping this from his grandson.

“I always knew he was famous and clever.” Charlie said.

“He’s more than that, Charlie.” confirmed his father. “He’s a magician. A pure candy magician. Creating the best candies that no one, not a single person in the whole world, could have ever thought of.”

“And every candy shop in every country has Wonka bars on every shelf for children to buy.” Grandpa Joe added.

“For children to rot their little teeth out of their heads and gum their food from then on.” Grandpa George interjected rather spitefully.

“George!” Grandma Josephine reprimanded.

“Dad, please.” Mr. Bucket shook his head as he helped his wife in bringing the bowls of cabbage soup in the center of the bed for the grandparents. As they each obtained their share of satisfying cabbage soup, Grandpa Joe continued on with his story.

“As a matter of fact, I used to work in that very same candy shop across the street, selling Wonka Bars to many customers. But the entire world wanted his candy. Oh, what a genius that Willy Wonka was. His candy was tasty enough to put other candy companies out of business. Not a single flaw about him in the least. Did you know that he has designed various kinds of chocolate bars far sweeter and creamier and tastier than the next more than any other chocolate factory in the world?”

“Of course not.” Charlie shook his head as he ate from his own bowl.

“It’s true.” nodded Grandma Josephine.

“And he sends them to every country in the world. To all the kings and presidents as well. But it wasn't just chocolate that he made. Oh, no! Willy Wonka created hundreds upon hundreds of candy of his own creation and imagination. He always has a newer idea up his sleeve ready to be brought to life. He’s invented everything from chocolate eggs that melt into birds in your mouth to likeable wallpapers for nurseries. Did you know that invented a new way of making ice cream so that it would stay cold for hours and hours without being stored in the freezer? You can even leave it lying out for an extended period of time on a hot Summer day and it would never go runny.”

“But that’s impossible.” said Charlie with a look of amazement in his eyes. How could it be possible for ice cream to be unmeltable when not kept under cool temperatures?

“Yes, indeed. It is quite impossible. But not for Mr. Wonka.” explained his grandfather. “He’s also created marshmallows that taste like violets and rich caramels that change color after every 10 seconds that you suck them and especially little feathery sweets that melt away in a delicious way right from the moment you put in in your mouth. There was even a special chewing gum that never lost its flavor as you chewed it and sugar balloons that you could blow up to humungous sizes before you pot them and gobbled them up. It just waters my mouth just thinking about it.”

“Mine too.” Charlie agreed.

“Tell Charlie about that Indian prince.” said Grandma Josephine. “He’d like to hear about that.”

“Oh, you mean Prince Pondicherry.” Grandpa Joe asked and chuckled in his throat.

“Absolutely dotty.” Grandpa George murmured.

“And very rich!” piped Grandma Georgina.

“What did he do?” asked Charlie with eagerness in his tone.

“Well, Prince Pondicherry wrote a letter to Mr. Wonka and asked him to travel all the way to India to build him a colossal, realistic palace entirely out of chocolate.”

“He didn’t really do that, did he?”

“Of course, he did.” nodded Grandpa Joe. “And what a marvelous place it was, indeed! It had one hundred room and everything was made of either dark or milk chocolate. The bricks were chocolate and the cement holding them all together was chocolate. And the windows were chocolate as well as the walls and the ceilings, the carpets, the pictures, the furnitures and the beds. And when you turned on the taps in the bathroom, hot chocolate poured out. And when it was finally complete, Mr. Wonka told him, “I must warn you, though, a palace like this would never last long, so I suggest you start eating right away.”

“Nonsense!” barked the Prince, “I wouldn’t dare eat my palace, even if it was built out of the most delicious chocolate. I plan to live in it!” But Mr. Wonka was right, of course. Because not long after this, there came a very hot day with a boiling sun and the whole palace began to melt and it sank slowly into the ground. The crazy prince, who was dozing in the living room at the time, woke up to find himself swimming and drowning in a huge, sticky brown lake that was once his beloved palace. The Prince sent an urgent telegram, requesting a brand new palace, but was denied.”

“Is all that true?” asked Charlie with confusion. “Did it really happen?”

“It’s true! Ask anyone.” Grandpa George conferred.

“Mr. Wonka, however, has facing his own issues back at the factory. For you see, there were many who were jealous of Mr. Wonka’s great success that they began to send in spies to steal his secret recipes. Including Arthur Slugworth. Oh, that Slugworth! He was worst of them all. He stole from him the recipe to the sugar balloons. It got so bad that Wonka began to distrust his own employees that he fired them all and send them home before announcing that he was closing his chocolate factory until further notice. But after he reopened it, those gates only opened for the trucks shipping the chocolate and candy to shops around the world. He never showed himself to the outside world again.”

Charlie looked surprised for a minute to rethink his grandfather’s words. It was a shock to now that Mr. Wonka fired all of his employees long ago. But that’s the case, how was Mr. Wonka running the factory and shipping the chocolate if he fired them?

“But if he fired all the workers, who’s working there now?” asked Charlie curiously.

“Nobody knows, Charlie.” Mrs. Bucket shrugged. “It’s quite a mystery.”

“Yes, but all factories have workers, you see. Except Wonka’s.” said Grandpa Joe. “Besides, have you ever seen a single person going into that factory or coming out?”

“Well, not exactly.” Charlie answered as best he could. “I walk past the factory and the gates are always closed.”

“Exactly.” confirmed Grandpa Joe.

“But there has to be someone working there.”

“Not people, Charlie. Well, not ordinary people, anyway.”

“But….then who?”

“Ah, that’s it, you see.” grinned Grandpa Joe. “Another one of Mr. Willy Wonka’s clevernesses.”

“If by clevernesses, you would include building a giant palace out of chocolate for that Indian prince?” said Mr. Bucket. “It’s not everyday you build foundations out of confectionary and expect it to last like any regular foundation.”

“Indeed.” Grandpa Joe nodded.

“Charlie, dear.” Mrs. Bucket called out to her son. “It’s time for bed, now. I think it’s time we let your grandparents have there rest for the night.”

“Goodnight, Grandpa Joe.” Charlie said as he kissed his grandfather on the head.

“Goodnight, Charlie.” He said back.

“Goodnight, Grandma Josephine.”

“Sleep tight.”

“Goodnight, Grandma Georgina.”

“See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight, Grandpa George.”

“And don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

After Grandpa Joe put out the kerosene lamp on the nightstand beside him, Charlie followed his parents to the other room where they nestled in their mattresses on the floor, wishing each other a good night. As Charlie rested on his mattress in the darkness, he gazed out the window and thought about Grandpa Joe’s stories, wondering who could be working at Wonka’s factory. It was certainly a mystery. One of the biggest mysteries since the Bermuda Triangle. But he hoped that one day, his luck would turn for the better. Not just for him, but for his whole family too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They belong to Roald Dahl. This very story supports the common fan theory that Willy Wonka is a serial killer. So I figured why not make a story set in an alternate universe where said theory is correct? This story has nothing to do with the 1971 or 2005 films, but with the book. However, there will be some cultural references to both theatrical films, so get an eye out for them. Anyway, do read and enjoy. But if you don't enjoy it, that's okay. You don't have to read it.


	2. The Golden Ticket Contest

“In the words of William Shakespeare: _‘Love me or hate me, both in my favor. If you love me, I’ll always be in your heart. If you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind.’_ ” recited the teacher, Miss. Merchant, to the classroom. “Now class, it is too be fair to be dishonest. No one can earn trust with just a smile or charisma. It’s the point of character that makes the person and how we see is how we understand, not from what we think.”

Charlie listened to every word his teacher spoke as did the rest of his classmates. He was learning so much and had already learned plenty. He had a high IQ in science and chemistry, but didn’t show has often as he was afraid of what other people would say or think about him.

“Charlie, care to recite to me another one of Shakespeare’s quotes?” asked Miss. Merchant, cutting Charlie off from his train of thoughts as he looked up from his textbook to look her in the eye.

“Uh…. _“Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.”_ ” said Charlie.

“Very good.” Miss. Merchant said.

As soon as class was dismissed, Charlie carried his satchel with him through the school hallways as everyone assembled their things and got ready to leave. His words explored the area around him, full of talkative children, undoubtable discussing Wonka’s delightful candies and whatnot. Who wouldn’t be? It’s pretty much the only thing everyone ever wants to talk about. There were a couple kids who would tease him for being poor, only to earn a good scolding from others. Charlie didn’t care much for their opinions so he just paid no mind. As he did everyday, he walked past the front gates of Wonka’s factory and the local candy store. He returned home to his family.

At that evening, Grandpa Joe was sharing with his stories about Wonka with Charlie, but this time, regarding the mystery of the anonymous employees Mr. Wonka currently has that nobody knows about.

“Oh, yes, that factory has been like a ghost town ever since Wonka’s trouble with industrial espionage.” explained the old man. “The factory became deserted and quiet ever since he shut those gates and never opened them again for a long time before he opened them again for the shipping trucks. The chimneys were no longer smoking, the machines stopped whirring and not even a single chocolate bar was made and sold. Months and months went by when the people began to see the smoke rising from the chimneys again. They were shocked and bewildered that Mr. Wonka was back in business again. They waited by the gate, hoping that they would open and Mr. Wonka would come out after months of his isolation, welcoming his old workers back. But sadly, he never did. He never showed his face to public. Not even once. But nevertheless, he still ran his factory again with the machines whirring once more and that sweet smell of chocolate you could smell for miles. But that’s not all, they also noticed shadows in the windows.”

“Shadows?” repeated Charlie with disbelief. “Shadows of who?”

“That’s exactly what everyone wanted to know for themselves.” said Grandpa Joe. “The place is full of workers, but nobody’s ever gone inside! And nobody ever comes out! But Wonka manufactured more chocolates and sweets these last 10 years. And they’ve been turning out more delicious every time. Up until now, Mr. Wonka invents newer candies everyday that even Slugworth, Fickelgruber or Prodnose would try to steal and copy. No more spies infiltrated that factory since then.”

“But who, Grandpa?” asked Charlie. “Who is Mr. Wonka using to do all the work in the factory?”

“It’s quite unknown, Charlie.”

“But it’s absurd. Hasn’t anyone asked Mr. Wonka?” asked Charlie.

“Nobody sees him anymore. He never comes out. The only things that will ever come out of that place is the chocolate and sweets already packed and addressed and picked up everyday by the trucks. I would give anything in the world just to go inside, just once, and have a look at what goes on in that amazing factory.”

Right at that very moment, Mr. Bucket entered through the door in a mad rush, making everyone jump and turn towards him to see what he was all frisky about. Mr. Bucket had returned home from the toothpaste factory and was holding the evening paper in his hands as if his life depended on it. He had just stopped to catch his breath when he faced his whole family.

“Have you all heard the news? Look.” said Mr. Bucket as he raised up the newspaper for everyone to see the headline in big, bold letters:

**_WONKA FACTORY TO BE OPENED AT LAST TO LUCKY FEW_ **

“Oh my goodness!” gasped Mrs. Bucket in surprise.

“I can’t believe it! He’s actually letting people into his factory? Read it to us! Read! Read!” urged Grandpa Joe excitedly and anxiously.

“Okay, listen to this.” Mr. Bucket said as he read through the note by Mr. Wonka himself.

_I, Willy Wonka, have decided to allow five children to visit my factory this year. These lucky children will be shown around personally by me and they will be allowed to see all the secrets and magic of my beloved factory. Then, at the end of the tour, as a special present, all of them will be given a lifetime supply of chocolates and sweets to last them for the rest of their lives. So watch out for the Golden Tickets! Five Golden Tickets have been printed on golden paper and these five Golden Tickets have been hidden underneath the ordinary wrapping paper of five ordinary bars of chocolate. These five chocolate bars may be anywhere in any shop in any street in any town in any country of the world, upon any counter where Wonka’s Sweets are sold. And the five lucky finders of these five Golden Tickets are the only ones who will be allowed to visit my factory and see what it’s like now inside. Good luck to you all and happy hunting!_

_Signed, Willy Wonka._

“Why, that man is dotty!” cried Grandma Josephine.

“He’s a genius!” chirped Grandpa Joe happily. “He’s a magician of candy! I mean, just imagine what will happen! The entire world’s gonna be on the hunt for those Golden Tickets! Everyone will be buying truckloads of Wonka Bars from every store in the hopes of finding one! He’ll be selling more chocolate bars than ever before!”

“All the chocolate and candy that you could ever eat free. Bah!” snorted Grandpa George with disdain. “I don’t believe a word of it! I bet there aren’t any Golden Tickets. This is probably just a trick to get people to buy more of his candy.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, dear!” piped Grandma Georgina.

“I know for a fact that Mr. Wonka is no liar!” Grandpa Joe encouraged. “They’d have to deliver them in a truck!”

“It makes me sick just to think about it.” muttered Grandpa George.

“Nonsense!” jabbed Grandpa Joe strictly before looking at his grandson. “Wouldn’t it be something, Charlie, to open a bar of chocolate and find a Golden Ticket glistening inside?”

“Yes, it certainly would.” said Charlie with sorrow. “But I have no hope. I only get one bar a year on my birthday.”

“You never know, sweetheart.” assured Grandma Georgina. “Besides, it’s your birthday next week. You have just as much as a chance as anybody else.”

“That’s right.” Grandpa Joe nodded. “Hell, I’m counting on you to find all five.”

“I think one is enough for me.” Charlie said.

“Only five Golden Tickets hidden all over the globe. Not everyone has a chance to find all five just for spending their entire money on thousands upon thousands of candy bars and just wasting them.”

Charlie felt weak when he said that and his confidence drop a level, but Grandma Josephine comforted him with kinder words.

“Everyone has a chance, Charlie. Even you.” She said.

“It’s not simply true.” Grandpa George remarked, shaking his head. “Any child who are going to find a Golden Ticket are the only ones who could afford to buy enough Wonka Bars every day and every month. There isn’t any hope. And according to my hunch, the first ticket finder will be, without the shadow of a doubt, extremely obese and greedy.”

As soon as word of Wonka’s announcement got through around the globe, the news were on the case in no shorter than a second. The Bucket family all watched the news report about the contest with there small television set with a delicate antenna that had to be steady as could be in order for the TV to actually work.

“ _And this just in, it has finally happened. Confectionary genius Willy Wonka is finally opening his grand chocolate factory to the entire world and has sent out five Golden Tickets hidden in ordinary Wonka Bars which could be anywhere in any section of the world. The lucky finder of each Golden Ticket will receive a great prize upon anything anyone could ever imagine. Lifetime supply of chocolate and, perhaps, something much more sublime. It has just begun. Chocolate bars are practically disappearing from shelves in every candy store in every country of the world. People are in a crazed frenzy on the hunt for those five Golden Tickets. Candy shops are selling more Wonka Bars since ever before as the Wonka contest has it’s firm grasp on our society._ ” said the anchorman on the news channel.

“My, my. This whole contest is making everyone mad.” said Mrs. Bucket with worry.

“There’s just no telling how long this will go on before the final ticket is finally found.” said Mr. Bucket as worried as his wife.

“Do you really think I could have a chance than anyone?” asked Charlie.

“Of course, Charlie!” Grandpa Joe said. “Why, you’d be a fool not to have a chance.”

“Now, dad, don’t get Charlie’s hopes up. It’s not very healthy.” Mrs. Bucket warned her father.

“Oh, so, what? A boy like him needs hopeful expectations, right?”

“What if he doesn’t find a ticket?” Mr. Bucket asked.

“Oh, he’ll find one. I’m counting on it.” said Grandpa Joe.


	3. The First Two Finders

It has begun. The entire world has ransacked every candy store, purchasing every single Wonka Bar they could lay their hands on in the hopes of searching for those Golden Tickets to get a look-see in what Mr. Wonka has inside of his amazing chocolate factory. And while the entire world slept, it happened finally. The first Golden Ticket was found at last by young German boy named Augustus Gloop, son of a prominent butcher in Düsseldorf. The boy was an absolute glutton. He’s just always hungry every day. Eating his weight hour after hour in chocolate bars and well, other foods as well. As soon on television in the Bucket’s house, the boy was, without any exception, the most round boy they had ever seen. The fattest young child who looked like a blob or ball of dough with limbs and appendages. Once the word got out around that Augustus found the ticket in the very chocolate bar he ate, the entire town went insane with excitement as they praised the little fat boy as a hero or celebrity. The media was on their case within seconds with reporters in their butcher shop asking personal questions, snapping pictures and getting the whole thing on film. Flags flew from every windows, the children were given a week off from school and a parade was being organized in his honor. The Buckets watched in disgust as Augustus was currently stuffing his face with a Wonka Bar, with his face smeared with chocolate while being interviewed on live TV.

“We just knew our Augustus would find a Golden Ticket.” explained Mrs. Bucket to the crowd of reporters and journalists and townsfolk. “He eats so many chocolate bars a day that it was just impossible for him not to find one. Eating is his hobby, you know. That’s all he’s interested in. But still, that’s better than being a hooligan and shooting off zip guns and the like in his spare time, wouldn’t you agree? And as I always say, he wouldn’t go on eating like he does unless he needed nourishment. It’s all vitamins, anyway. What a thrill it will be for him to visit Mr. Wonka’s marvellous factory! We’re just as proud as anything!”

“I warned you all, didn’t I?” retorted Grandpa George with unhidden disgust.

“What a repulsive boy!” Grandma Josephine grimaced upon sight of the fat, gluttonous boy.

“And what a repulsive mother, too!” agreed Grandma Georgina.

“Only four Golden Tickets left.” said Grandpa Joe. “I wonder who’ll will find those. Things are getting crazier each day.”

And now with four more tickets left, the whole country and, not too long, afterwards, the whole world from the Hawaiian Islands to Antarctica, flew into a mad and crazed Wonka Bar-hunting shopping spree, robbing each store of it’s bars of chocolate until there were none left in a matter of seconds. Everybody wanted in on Wonka’s secrets and to see the inside of his enigmatic factory as they frantically and anxiously searched for the remaining Golden Tickets and didn’t seem to stop until they did. Full grown men and women zipped through every candy store on every block, purchasing at least ten or even twenty chocolate bars at a time, ripping through the wrapping paper, eager to find that shiny glimpse of golden paper, but not everyone was that successful. Children smuggled all their allowance money and coins from their piggy banks and ran through every shop with their money. But it was quite apparent that they were only buying the chocolate bars to find the tickets as they were just wasting all that delicious chocolate they wasted all their money on. At one point, a rich woman’s husband was kidnapped and held for ransom. When they called, they demanded the woman’s cases of Wonka Bars in exchange for her husband’s life. In New York City, a convict robbed a bank of their cash and spend said cash on an entire shop-sized supply of chocolate bars. When the police arrived to arrest him, there were mountains of unwrapped chocolate bars and there he was, unwrapping the Wonka Bars with a switchblade. While in Russia, a woman named Charlotte Russe seemed to have found a Golden Ticket. However, it turned out to be a counterfeit fake to fool everybody into thinking she won before she was arrested for her trickery. Famed English scientist, Professor Foulbody invented a machine that would answer any question you asked it. When he asked it for the location of the Golden Ticket, it refused to answer truthfully as it would be considered cheating. After unsuccessfully trying to convince his creation into handing out the ticket’s location, he threw a childish fit and smashed it to pieces with a bat, making a real scene in front of his superiors. Even in London, they were holding an auction for a whole box of Wonka Bars. The auctioneer began to unfairly shout out bids, not letting anyone else share theirs. But that was until the Queen herself made an appearance.

Then suddenly, when all seemed hopeless, the second Golden Ticket was found by another lucky child; a wealthy girl in England named Veruca Salt. Unfortunately, to say that really “found” the ticket would be a lie. The girl was selfish, spoiled, unkind, needy and an outright out-of-control brat. Every now and then, she asks her parents for many things constantly and will act out violently when her requests aren’t fulfilled. She even believes herself to be above other children, thinking that only she needs to be the first for anything and everything. Veruca forced her father to utilize his nut-shelling factory to have his workers, who were all female, to unwrap Wonka Bars instead of nuts and not stop until a Golden Ticket was found.

The media was filming the family on TV as the Buckets witness little Veruca with her parents and holding up her ticket for all the world to see. But the Buckets could see through the creepily-wide innocent smile that she was no angel. Her father, Mr. Salt, explained to the reporters about how her daughter’s so-called discovery, “You see, gentleman, as soon as my little girl told me she simply had to have one of these one of these Golden Tickets, I went out into the town and started buying all the Wonka Bars I could lay my hands on. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. Then I had them loaded onto trucks and sent directly to my own factory. I’m in the nut business, you see, and I’ve got about a hundred women working for me over at my place, shelling peanuts to be roasted and salted. 24 hours a day those women sit there shelling peanuts. So I say to them, “Okay, ladies. From now on, you can stop shelling peanuts and start shelling the wrappers off these chocolate bars instead!” And that’s exactly what they did. I had every worker in the place yanking the paper off those bars of chocolate like their lives depended on it at full speed from dawn ‘till dusk.”

“But three days went by and we had no luck. Oh, it was terrible. My little Veruca got more and more upset each day and every time I went home, she would scream at me, “Where is my Golden Ticket?! I want my Golden Ticket!”, and then she’d lie on the floor, kicking and shouting in the most disturbing way. Well, to be honest, I just hated seeing my little girl feeling unhappy like that. So I vowed to keep up the search until I got her what she wanted. And finally, went everything seemed fruitless enough, one of my workers found a ticket. I rushed it all the home and gave it to Veruca. She now smiles and everybody’s happy!”

“My goodness! She’s even worse than that fat boy!” griped Grandma Josephine.

“What she really needs is a good, well-deserved spanking on the hindquarters.” Grandma Georgina. “And a moment in the corner if possible.”

“That’s not fair at all, is it?” asked Charlie, a little inept that the girl’s father didn’t play by the rules. “She didn’t even find the ticket herself. She had her father do all the work for her.”

“Don’t worry yourself over that, Charlie.” Grandpa Joe told him. “He spoils his own daughter. And mark my words, no good ever comes from spoiling a child like that.”

“Tomorrow’s your birthday, dear.” Mrs. Bucket said to her son. “I expect you’ll be up bright and early to open your present.”

“Yes, mom.” Charlie smiled excitedly.

“You should probably head to bed now. In fact, we all better be.” said Mr. Bucket.

“Good night, everyone.” said Charlie as he started off toward the other room to get ready to hit the hay for the night.

“Good night, Charlie.” The whole family chorused in perfect unison as they switched off the kerosene lamp.

“Sleep well, my darling.” Mrs. Bucket said.


	4. The Other Two Lucky Finders

“Happy birthday, Charlie!” shouted all four grandparents in perfect unison as Charlie entered the room with a hopeful and gleeful smile on his face.

But Charlie was also nervous as he sat down at the table. His parents had given him his present. A very tiny one. The only present that he ever gets once a year on his birthday and there it was in his hands. Wonka’s Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight.

Everyone watched him with wide eyes and baited breath. The four old people, two on each side of the bed, sat themselves up and laid their listening, anxious eyes on the boy sitting at the table with his chocolate gift. Mr. and Mrs. Bucket were watching as well. The room was dead silent as the Buckets were waiting for Charlie to unwrap the chocolate bar too see what was hidden. Charlie eyed his Wonka Bar with a nervous look. He got this only once a year and they didn’t have enough money to buy a whole mountain of chocolate. Giften the ticket-hunting contest going on and with only three left in the whole world, it was highly unlikely that he’ll find one. Stroking the chocolate gently, he slowly and carefully slid the paper off the bar, leaving only the silver wrapper.

“Now, darling.” began Mrs. Bucket gently. “You mustn’t be too disappointed if you don’t find what you’re looking for underneath. You really can’t expect to have as much luck as we do.”

“Yeah.” nodded Mr. Bucket. “Whatever happens, you’ll still have the chocolate.”

“After all, in the whole wide world, there are only three tickets left.” Grandma Josephine explained.

“The thing to remember is that there can’t really be a Golden Ticket hidden inside every chocolate bar.” said Grandma Georgina.

“And besides, Wonka’s Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight is the best brand of them all.” Grandpa George said matter-of-factly.

“I know.” Charlie agreed with a nod.

“Just forget about the Golden Tickets for a minute and enjoy the chocolate.” Grandpa Joe said. “Try that.”

They all knew it that wasn’t right to raise the young boy’s hope all for Golden Tickets hidden inside candy bars, especially the one Charlie was holding right now. There was about a fifty-fifty chance that there may or may not be a ticket inside and they were nicely trying to prepare Charlie for the disappointment he might feel if he doesn’t find one. But they all knew one thing and that was that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the change was there. It had to be there.

This particular bar of chocolate had as much of a chance as any other with a Golden Ticket inside.

“You better go ahead, Charlie. You don’t want to be late for school.” said Grandpa Joe.

“You might as well get it over with.” Grandpa George gripped.

“Dad.” Mr. Bucket told his father with a warning tone.

“Please go on, Charlie. Open it up. We must see it.” urged Grandma Georgina anxiously.

“We’re all old and tired people. We don’t like to be kept waiting.” reminded Grandpa Joe.

Well, here it goes, thought Charlie to himself. So very slowly, not immediately ripping off the paper in seconds as he wanted it to be a surprise, Charlie began to remove one corner of the silver wrapping paper at a time. The grandparents all edged closer to get a closer look. Grandpa Joe was the most anxious of them all as he wanted to get a glimpse of that shiny, golden paper inside if it was in there after this. Charlie was also desperate as he held his breath and stare unblinkingly down at the bar of chocolate as his fingers did all the work. Then finally, tired of the rising suspense getting to him, Charlie yanked the tin off to reveal…..nothing but a light-brown bar of chocolate.

No Golden Ticket anywhere at all.

Like Charlie, everyone’s faces fell with equal disappointment as they were all really hoping for Charlie to find one. He looked at his family with four kind, elderly face looking at him. He smiled back at them with the best smile he could muster.

“Oh, well. That’s that.” sighed Grandpa Joe.

“We could share it. Everybody can taste it.” Charlie said.

“Oh, no, Charlie! Certainly not!” Mrs. Bucket cried.

“Not your birthday present!” Mr. Bucket said.

Then all the grandparents’ cries of refusal overlapped each other, “No! We wouldn’t dream of it. It’s yours! All of it!”

Charlie sighed, even more disappointed, and stared at the bare bar of chocolate in his hands. Then he felt his mother’s hands on his shoulders.

“Come along, darling. Time for school.” She told him.

He grabbed his satchel and reluctantly ate the chocolate. Even though he didn’t find a Golden Ticket, he was still hungry for the taste of chocolate. His day at school was as it was any other day. Bland and boring. Nothing new going on. But later that evening, Mr. Bucket was on his way from work when he noticed the headline of the newspaper, announcing the lucky finders of both the third and fourth Golden Tickets. Not there was only one Golden Ticket left somewhere.

He rushed home with the paper and entered to see his wife preparing supper, Charlie doing his homework and the four grandparents in their usual spot on the bed.

“Alright, let’s hear who found them.” encouraged Grandpa Joe as Mr. Bucket sat down at the table with the newspaper for today.

“The third ticket was found by Miss. Violet Beauregarde.” read Mr. Bucket out loud for the whole family to hear.

True to his word, as shown on their television screen, there stood a young American girl with black hair with some dyed streaks of magenta and tied into a small ponytail held together with a barrett, a white hoodie, black skirt, black and purple/blue leggings and gym shoes. Violet Beauregarde was an arrogant, rude and rather egotistical young junior athlete who has accomplished so many records and won many medals and trophies and rewards, enough to fill a whole room. She’s also quite known for her gum-chewing obsession. Every hour on the hour, she chews and chews on her gum and never stops. Call it a little exercise for her jaw muscles. As a result of her family’s growing success, she and her divorced mother lived in an upper-class suburban neighborhood. There she was, standing in the living room with her young mother, looking proud as the cameras flashed and flickered while they were interviewed by the press and the media. Her mother stood by the piano, posing for the reporters and such, being the former model that she is while her precious daughter waved her ticket around madly as if she were flagging a taxi.

“Now I’m a gum chewer, normally.” said Violet, explaining to the many faces before her, boastfully as she chewed on her gum. “But when I heard about these ticket things of Mr. Wonka’s, I put the gum aside for the time being and stuck to chocolate bars in the hope of getting lucky. Well, now that I have, I’m back to the gum. I just love gum. I don’t know what I’d do without it. I chew it all day long, except at mealtimes, during which I have to take it out and stick it behind my ear for safekeeping.”

“She’s just a relentless young woman. Never stopping until she succeeds. Needless to say, it runs in the family. In fact, my ex-husband owns a car dealership which I get half of the salary he gets. Surprise, surprise! Everyone wins! Especially us Beauregardes!” said Mrs. Beauregarde with a smug grin from ear to ear.

“This simple piece of gum that I’m chewing right at this moment is one I’ve been working on for over three months solid. That’s a record! Which is now being held by my best friend, Miss. Cornelia Prinzmetel. And, boy, was she ever furious! And so, I’m thrilled to be going to Mr. Wonka’s factory. I don’t care who those other four children are who are coming to the factory. Because I’m a winner. I know it’s gonna be me. I can feel it in my blood!”

“Such a beastly girl!” spat Grandpa Josephine.

“Despicable!” added Grandma Georgina, glaring at the small TV screen, showing that disrespectful little champion. “She’s bound to come to a sticky end eventually, chewing that gum. See if she doesn’t.”

“ _Here we are in little Denver, Colorado where the fourth Golden Ticket has been found by a boy called Mike Teavee._ ” responded the anchorman as they were now shown a different part of America in front of an ordinary neighborhood house.

The fourth lucky finder was, in fact, Mike Teavee. The boy was an obsessive television viewer and fun of many TV shows that involved action, horror, murder, gun fights and the like. But because of all that, Mike was lazy, easily distracted and had some sass. Everyday he is practically glued in front of the television set, watching is favorite shows and playing on is game consoles, having nothing better to do. It’s probably been that way since he first discovered television. He even eats his meals while watching TV. The reporters and journalists were all crammed into the small household interviewing Mike while he was doing his usual routine of watching television. His favorite show was one and he was not going to miss any of it.

“Can’t you people see I’m watching my show?” He snapped angrily in annoyance by all the pesky reporters. He was seated in front of the television set with his eyes glue to the screen, trying to ignore the press in his house.

“Mike, we’d like to hear a few words about-”

“Please be quiet!” yelled Mike. “Don’t interrupt! This show’s an absolute whiz-banger! I watch it every day. I watch every one of my shows, even the worst ones yet. Ones that don’t involve shooting. I mean, with or without a little violence and the whole bit. Just can’t get enough of those gangsters and cowboys, pumping each other full of lead, flashing old stilettos and giving each other a good beating of a lifetime!”

“His mother serves his TV dinners right here.” Mr. Teavee said to the media. “He just never leaves that spot for anything. He’s never been to the table. And usually, it’s hard to understand what he’s talking about. Don’t get me wrong. He’s quite smart and exceptional for his age, but sometimes I worry about his health, just doing nothing but sit there in front of the TV, melting his mind with images of gunshots and bloodshed.”

“That’s quite enough!” snapped Grandpa George while Mr. Bucket switched the TV off. “I can’t listen to any more of that hobble-gobble.”

“I agree.” Grandpa Georgina said. “Are all children brats nowadays? Don’t they have any self-respect?”

“Of course not.” said Mr. Bucket. “Some do and some don’t. In fact, quite a lot of them do, but not all.”

“And now there’s only one ticket left!” Charlie expressed with glee.

“Quite so.” said Grandpa Joe. “And just as I’ll be eating cabbage soup tomorrow afternoon, that ticket will go right to some other horrendous little monster that doesn’t deserve it.”


	5. The Last Golden Ticket!

The few passing days, Mr. Bucket had found out that his superiors were replacing him with a state-of-the-art machine to screw the caps on the toothpaste tubes whereupon Mr. Bucket had to be removed from his position and occupation at the toothpaste factory. At home, Mr. Bucket was a wreck. How was he going to help support his family now? Certainly there were other jobs. But some are not easy to get and there was hardly any help wanted anywhere.

“What am I going to do?” sighed Mr. Bucket, brushing a few strands of his hair back from the stress. “Who else is going to hire someone as poor as me? I’m down on my last leg.”

“Oh, chin up, dear.” Mrs. Bucket comforted, coming over to rest her hands on her husband’s shoulders and her head onto his. “We’ll make it through. I’m certain of it.”

“How can we?” said Mr. Bucket. “Do you really think Charlie has a chance?”

His wife pondered this question for a mere moment or two and exhaled a sigh.

“I want to believe that, darling. I really do.” began Mrs. Bucket. “But people like us just aren’t as lucky as the other children.”

“Yes, I know.” Her husband grunted from being reminded of those four naughty kids. “But you know how interested Charlie is. I mean, children need to have hope and dreams.”

“I know my dad likes to think that, but he’s as optimistic as he is stubborn.” said Mrs. Bucket. “But not everyone can have as much luck. And now that there’s only one ticket left floating around who knows where, it’s rare to think Charlie could ever find it easily. There’s a million people in this world and only five people can find those tickets. Even if we did have all the money we could ever have, the chances are unlikely. And when this whole contest is over, he’ll be no different than the billion other children who never found one.”

“If we did have enough money, we’d move out of the home we have now and buy a bigger, nicer home. But that’s just me getting my hopes up, isn’t it?” Mr. Bucket wondered out loud, feeling his spirit diminish. “I have no job, no good salary. Heaven knows what could go wrong.”

“Oh, come here, you.” Mrs. Bucket cooed, embracing her husband tightly in a warm hug. “Don’t lose hope.”

The next day when Charlie arrived home from school, he went inside to find his grandparents sound asleep, safe for Grandpa Joe who was still wide awake. The other three senior members of the Buckets snoozed away softly, filling the silence with their soft snores.

“Charlie.” His dear, old Grandpa Joe whispered and silently beckoned him over to him. Charlie slowly tip-toed over to the bed, careful to not wake his sleeping grandparents. Grandpa Joe then reached a hand delicately under the mattress and pulled out a small coin purse, appearing to be raggedy from age and coated with dust. The elderly man carefully opened it with his fingers and took out a single silver sixpence coin.

“My secret hoard.” He whispered, holding it up for Charlie to see. “The others don’t know about this. Now you and I are going to have one more fling in finding that last ticket. But you’ll need to help me.”

“Are you sure you want to spend your money on that, Grandpa?” whispered Charlie with uncertainty.

“Of course I’m sure.” said Grandpa Joe as he handed him the coin. “I’m just as anxious as you are to find that ticket. Now take the money, run down to the nearest shop, buy the first Wonka Bar you see, bring it straight back and we’ll open it together.”

With an understood nod, Charlie took the coin and headed out the door without question. The boy did as he was told and in five minutes tops, he returned home to his grandfather with the Wonka Bar he had purchased.

“Have you got it?” asked Grandpa Joe.

“Yes.” nodded Charlie as he held out the Wonka’s Nutty Crunch Surprise.

“Good.” said the old man, sitting upright on the bed, desperate to search for that exciting glint of gold. “Come closer now. We’ll open it together.”

“Okay. I’m ready.” Charlie said.

“Why don’t you tear off a corner first?”

“I paid for it with your money. You should it all.” insisted Charlie.

“We don’t have a hope, really.” whispered Grandpa Joe. “You do know we don’t have a hope, right?”

“Yes, I do. Let’s just do it quick like a band-aid.” Charlie suggested.

Grandpa Joe nodded in agreement and they both closed their tight while their hands went to work in tearing away the wrapper, hoping to surprise themselves. With Charlie’s strong, quick hands and Grandpa Joe’s fumbling, fidgeting old fingers combined, the wrapping paper came off along with the tin foil that came after. When they believed to have unwrapped it completely, they opened their eyes to see only the bar of chocolate and nothing else. It was just like on Charlie’s birthday.

Still no Golden Ticket.

They both shared a disappointed look. Grandpa Joe was the most excited to find that last ticket. But now he was left to believe that he had wasted his own secret money stash on a simple chocolate bar for nothing.

* * *

The next few weeks turned rather cold as it was during the winter. In fact, the coldest it’s ever been during the winter. It snowed like crazy, pilling the streets and sidewalks in thick layers of glittering, white pleasantness. If you were to walk in it, the snowy layers would go up past your ankles and your shoes would be covered.

For the Buckets, it was like hard work and labor. Mr. Bucket had to dig a path in the piling snow in order for them to get in and out of the tiny house. It was freezing each day with jets of icy breezes that blew everywhere, flying snowflakes in all directions. The excitement over the Golden Tickets was long forgotten as the Buckets had bigger issues on their hands at this point, such as keeping warm and not starving. The latter was the worst and most torturous. Now that Mr. Bucket was unemployed, he couldn’t get enough money to get them good food to eat besides cabbage soup. How they all long for more delicious food instead of the usual stuff they eat. They craved for things that make your mouth water just thinking about them like apple pies and rich boiling stews.

Of course, Mr. Bucket soon taken a small living out of shoveling the streets for people to walk on, but the pay was still as worse as the pay from his job at the toothpaste factory. Still not enough to buy even a small quarter of food. Everyone at the Bucket household began to starve from the thin amount of meals they got. Breakfast was just one slice of bread for each person and lunch was a half of a potato.

Every day, Charlie Bucket trudged through the snow-covered sidewalks on his way home from school to pass Wonka’s factory. His skin had grown white and pasty from the bitter cold and his teeth chattered uncontrollably. And also, he got thinner and thinner from the starvation. It was just miserable for him. The starvation was killing him both inside and out like a family curse. On his usual passing of the factory, he’d stick his nose high in the air and get a whiff of that sweet chocolate smell. He would stand there by the gates, looking up towards the magnificent structure and wonder what could’ve been. The next morning was like every other morning these past few days.

“That child.” sighed Grandpa Joe mournfully. “He has got to have more food. It doesn't matter about us. We’re too old these days to worry about. A growing boy like him needs his strength and energy. He can’t go on like this.”

“What can one do?” asked Grandma Josephine. “He won’t take any of our food and I hear his mother tried to offer him a slice of her bread, but he refused. It’s just sad seeing him like this.”

“Oh, he’s a fine fellow.” Grandpa George said. “He deserves better than this.”

“With only one Golden Ticket left, I’m beginning to lose hope myself.” Grandpa Joe replied. “It’ll just fall right into the hands of another disrespectful brat and Charlie will be stuck here with this miserable life without good food or warmth.”

* * *

Charlie’s days at school were no different. They were discussing the amount of Wonka Bars each child opened during the contest. It was only worse for Charlie as he listened to his classmates brag about how many they’ve opened. Of course, none of them were lucky in finding a ticket either, but the thought of them buying the most chocolate bars than him was plain tedious. He only got to open two chocolate bars to find a ticket, but find nothing but the chocolate itself. The one on his birthday and the one Grandpa Joe had him buy. The cruel weather went on without end. It just got colder and colder and the Buckets were running out of ways to find heat in their useless old house. They were running short on firewood and matches and those kerosene lamps provided little to no much of a tiny bit of warmth. Everyone was growing cold, hungry and exhausted from everything.

Then one afternoon, while poor Charlie was walking home through the blistering cold winter winds, growing hungrier and chillier, a tiny ray of bright light caught his eye, making him stop in his tracks in the frozen cement sidewalk. The light led him towards a storm drain on the curb. Charlie’s eyes widened with hope. Could it be what he thought it was?

It certainly _was_. As he bend down to examine the shiny object, he saw exactly what he hoped it to be. Sitting there all by itself in the storm drain was a shiny, silvery _fifty-pence piece_.

Maybe someone dropped it there? None of that mattered anymore. What’s important is that Charlie had finally found an acceptable bit of money. It was damp from the snow and dirty from sitting in the mud from inside the drain. Charlie let a small smile paint itself on his practically-frozen cheeks. Perhaps he could use this to buy himself some sustenance. He just had to. His stomach was quite literally calling to him. Begging for some food.

Charlie headed over to the nearest candy shop, which was a couple inches away from a newspaper stand. He didn’t bother listening in on the overlapping voices and disgruntled conversations by the stand about the scandal in Russia. Charlie didn’t care about that right now. He needed food and he needed it fast. He entered the shop and laid the fifty pence on the counter in front of the shopkeeper by the cash register.

“One Wonka’s Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight, please.” Charlie said to the gentleman behind the counter.

“Right then. You certainly look like you could use one.” The shopkeeper said as he reached for the first bar he saw and handed to the boy. Charlie’s mouth watered at the sight of chocolate at last. He began wolfing down the chocolate, causing his cheeks to bulge. It’s been forever since he’s had anything good to eat and he knew he could always count on Wonka’s delicious candy.

“Woah, woah, take it easy, boy.” said the shopkeeper, seeing Charlie scarf the thing down like his life depended on it. “You could get a stomach ache if swallow it like that.”

“Sorry.” Charlie apologized, feeling embarrassed. “My family isn’t exactly the richest people and we barely get enough to eat.”

“Well, that’s understandable.”

Charlie waded over to the exit, eating the rest of the chocolate bar with his stomach mumbling with delight of being finally fed. But then he stopped when he decided that one bar wasn’t enough and thought maybe one more wouldn’t hurt. He walked back over to the counter after finding another fifty-pence piece sitting on the floor.

“I think I’ll have just one more.” Charlie said. “Same as the other one.”

“Ah, yes. Bet that last one wasn’t enough. Living a life of starvation can be the worst.” The shopkeeper said and handed him another Wonka’s Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight after taking his fifty pence piece. Charlie clutched it in his hands and undid the wrapping paper and suddenly found something that caught him off guard.

There was something shiny under that wrapper and foil. Something shiny and……….gold. Yes! Charlie knew it to be true as he tore through the rest of the wrapping paper like a madman and pulled out a Golden Ticket. The fifth and very last Golden Ticket in the world. Charlie grinned from ear to ear as he eyed it happily. He just knew his luck would turn sooner or later. His heart began to race as he thought of the possibilities.

“My word, it’s a Golden Ticket!” shouted the shopkeeper upon seeing the ticket. “You’ve got it! You’ve found the last Golden Ticket! I don’t believe it! Everyone! Everyone! The boy’s found Wonka’s last Golden Ticket in my shop, too!”

In no time, everyone in the shop started to crowd around the boy in a desperate and anxious attempt to have a glimpse of the final tickets themselves and even try to steal it from him so they could have it. The poor boy was starting to suffocate from the huge crowd of chattering, excited people, feeling himself getting squeezed in between them.

“Where is it? I must see it!” Someone screamed. “Hold it up, boy, so everyone can see it!”

“There it is! Right there in the boy’s hand!”

“How did he manage to find it?! I simply must know!”

“It’s real! Real gold!”

Charlie was growing ever uncomfortable from the pushy crowd of onlookers. But he stayed still and quiet, keeping the ticket clutched tight in his fingers so nobody could get it. They were yanking him all around and smothering him with their contagious excitement and onslaught of questions about his grand discovery. The sensation was getting out of control as the people were constantly egging Charlie on, even trying to bride the poor boy out of the ticket in exchange for many valuable things, but it wouldn’t take three guesses for one to assume they were only trying to con him in order to have the ticket for themselves.

“Listen, I’ll buy it from you.” A tall man begged, placing his hands on Charlie’s shoulders. “I’ll give you 50 pounds and new bicycle, eh? How about it, then?”

“Are you crazy?!” shrieked a woman beside him. “Why, I would give him 200 dollars for that ticket! You’d want to sell that ticket for 200 pounds, young man?”

“That’s quite enough!” barked the shopkeeper as he hopped over the counter to Charlie’s aid; prying him from the grabby hands of the excited townspeople and brushing them back. “Leave the boy alone! Back away! All of you! Leave him alone!”

He led to the door and told him, “Don’t let anybody have it, son. Take it straight home quickly. Run all the way and don’t stop ‘til you get there, you understand?”

“Thank you.” Charlie nodded and smiled as he darted down the street with the ticket tight in his hands. He was so glad that he finally found a Golden Ticket after all this. He ran and ran as fast as he could to avoid anyone who could steal it from him. He cut down an alleyway to make a shortcut back home, but then somebody stood in his way, blocking his path and stopping dead in the middle of the alley. The man wore a black coat and fedora and looked to be in his late sixties with a growing beard and long fading brown hair. Something about this stranger made Charlie feel uneasy and unnerved.

“Well, well, well. The lucky finder of the final Golden Ticket.” The man smiled wryly. “I congratulate you, young man. How lucky you are, indeed. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Arthur Slugworth, president of Slugworth Incorporated. Now listen to me carefully, because this is really important. There is something about Mr. Wonka that the entire world doesn’t know about. He is making something that world will undoubtedly enjoy. The Everlasting Gobstopper. If Wonka succeeds, my business will be in jeopardy. When you get inside of his factory, get at least one Everlasting Gobstopper and bring it to me so that I will find the secret formula and in return, I will offer you 10,000 dollars to help save your family from poverty and starvation. Believe me, Charlie. You’ll really need it. So find an Everlasting Gobstopper, bring it to me and don’t let Mr. Wonka know about it. But…….do not trust him.”

Slugworth’s final word brought a chill to Charlie’s spine. Not from the overwhelming winter air, but a rather perturbed feeling. He felt as so that this man was trying to trick him into stealing from the greatest confectioner the world as ever known under the pretense that Mr. Wonka himself was someone he shouldn’t trust. With a small gulp, he reluctantly nodded and slowly continued his journey down the path home.

“He’s not what you think he is.” Slugworth’s voice called out to him. “He’s gonna disappoint you.”

Charlie said nothing and immediately forgot about his words and instructions before heading down the street to his house, brushing off Slugworth’s words as just a lousy attempt to use him in his thievery. He was always warned about the spies that stole from Wonka before and he didn’t want to be considered a thief. That just wasn’t him at all.

Charlie zipped by the front gates of the factory and stopped for a brief moment to give it a grateful smile.

“I’ll see you soon! I’ll be seeing you soon!” He shouted out and waving to no one in particular and proceed on his dash back home.


	6. The Big Day

“Mom! Dad!” Charlie screamed with joy, bursting through the front door with the speed of a jaguar and waving the ticket around for everyone to see. “Mom! I’ve found it! Look, the last Golden Ticket! It’s mine! It’s the fifth Golden Ticket and I’ve found it!”

Mrs. Bucket was working on the evening soup when Charlie entered screaming the news, making her stop what she was doing as she and the four grandparents stood still in silence and stared at the boy with eyes full of confusion and bewilderment. How could it be possible? The room was dead quiet for about ten seconds before Grandpa Joe was the first one to speak.

“You’re pulling our legs, Charlie.” He responded softly. “This is a joke, isn’t it?”

“No, Grandpa! Look! See for yourself!” cried Charlie as he approached the bed in a flash and handed the old man the beautiful, shiny ticket.

Grandpa Joe was still a little skeptical, but decided to humor him. He eyeballed the thing to make sure it wasn’t fake or poorly made. But to both his surprise and increasing excitement, it was definitely no fake at all. It was real! It felt real and it looked real! True to his grandson’s words, he was actually holding a Golden Ticket. Charlie really did find one after all. All of his hopes had come true. Charlie finally has a chance to visit the factory. The bedridden old man felt an exploding sensation in his chest that could only be described as absolute happiness.

“Yippeeeeeeeee!” He shouted with glee. The joy he was feeling was so powerful, in fact, that it actually caused him to knock his bowl of cabbage soup onto the floor as he flipped the covers off and jump right out of the bed as if the mattress was red hot. Grandpa Joe, the 96 in a half old man who has been in bed for over twenty years, was finally out of bed for the first time since ever and he began to dance happily in his pajamas while everyone stared. Mr. Bucket overheard the commotion from the other room and entered, looking cold and tired from shoveling snow all day.

“What’s going in here?” He asked.

“Charlie’s finally found the last Golden Ticket! Can you believe it?!” cried Grandpa Joe with the excitement of a child as he stopped dancing and handed him the ticket. “Here.”

Mr. Bucket shook of the feeling of seeing his father-in-law finally out of bed and grabbed the ticket and examined it carefully. A very beautiful thing in fact, being made of the purest and thinnest golden paper and said “Golden Ticket” in big, bold jet-black letters. Below it was an invitation from Mr. Wonka in small handwriting.

“Read it aloud!” urged Grandpa Joe. “Let’s all hear exactly what it says!”

Mr. Bucket did what he was told and read through the invitation on the ticket while the rest of the Buckets listened with open ears.

 _Greetings to you, the lucky finder of this Golden Ticket, from Mr. Willy Wonka._ _  
_ _I shake you warmly by the hand! Tremendous things are in store for you. For now, I do invite you to come to my factory and be my guest for one whole day. For I, Willy Wonka, will conduct you around the factory myself, showing you everything there is to see and afterwards, when it is time to leave, you will be escorted home by a procession of large trucks. Each will be loaded with enough delicious chocolates to last you and your entire families for many years. I am preparing other surprises that are even more fantastic than the next for you, my beloved Golden Ticket holders. The marvellous and astonishing surprises beyond your wildest imaginations. Just wait and see! Now here are your instructions: Arrive at the factory gates on February 1, 2018 at 10:00 AM sharp in the morning. Don’t be late. You are permitted to bring one or two members of your family to come with you. I will personally look after you children myself to make sure you don’t get into any mischief. Your parents or guardians will be given a tour of their own throughout the factory. And one more thing - do not lose this ticket or else you won’t be admitted._

_Signed, Willy Wonka_

“February 1st?” repeated Mrs. Bucket with deep thought before coming to a realization. “That’s tomorrow!”

“Indeed!” cried Mr. Bucket.

“Then there’s not a moment to lose, Charlie.” Grandpa Joe shouted to his grandson. “You must start making preparations at once! Wash your face, comb your hair, scrub your hands, brush your teeth, blow your nose, cut your nails, polish your shoes, iron your shirt and for heaven’s sake, get that mud off your pants! You must be ready, Charlie! You must be ready for the biggest day of your life!”

“Now, now, slow down, dad.” Mrs. Bucket replied, gesturing for Grandpa Joe to calm himself down. “Don’t over-excite yourself. Let’s all try to keep calm about this. First thing to decide is this. Who is going with Charlie to the factory?”

“I will!" answered Grandpa Joe immediately. “I’ll take him! You leave it to me!”

Mrs. Bucket stared at the old man with a voiceless mouth and almost stuttered. She knew how desperate her father was in seeing the factory. She turned to her husband.

“What about you, dear?” She asked him.

“Well, the ticket did say bring one or two relatives, so I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for me to tag along. Just to see what all the fuss about that place is about.” Mr. Bucket said. “And Grandpa Joe seems to know more about it than we do. Provided, of course, he feels well enough.”

“Yippeeeeeee!” cheered Grandpa Joe. “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!”

Then there was a knock on the door and Mr. Bucket went to open it. Upon doing so, an entire crowd of the press; journalists, reporters and such barrelled into the tiny house, hoping to get a story out of the fifth and final Golden Ticket finder. Mr. and Mrs. Bucket were uncomfortable around them as they once again smothered poor Charlie with questions and put him on live television. To Charlie, it felt like an invasion of privacy. All the camera flashes and the reporters sticking their microphones in his face, beckoning him to hear his words to the whole world. Luckily, Charlie’s parents managed to kick them all around before midnight approached so that he could be in bed in time. Charlie Bucket felt his heart skip a beat. Tomorrow morning, he will finally get a glimpse inside of Willy Wonka’s famous chocolate factory.

* * *

The next morning on the first of February, the entire town were gathered in front of the factory gates, waiting with bated breath for the magnificent magician known as Willy Wonka to make his appearance for the first time. The whole crowd was abuzz and excited as this was the biggest moment in all their lives. The ground beneath their feet was still covered in snow. Cameras flashed and the entire event was being broadcasted on the news channel. The policeman had linked arms in front of the crowd to keep them in place. It was only 9:30 AM and the five lucky children stood in front of the gates as they waited as patiently as they could. Except for Veruca, of course, since she wanted to get inside first.

Charlie stood with his father and Grandpa Joe while he looked at all the other children who won a chance to see the factory. The fat German boy, Augustus Gloop, was just munching away on his Wonka Bar, the proud gum chewer, Violet Beauregarde was texting on her iPhone and chewing her record gum, bored out of her mind, the spoiled brat, Veruca Salt, as told before, waited impatiently and tapping her foot on the snow frantically and lastly, the television freak, Mike Teavee, was showing off to the camera, bragging to whoever back at his hometown could be watching right now about his achievement, glad to actually be on television. The other four kids were being interviewed, except for the Buckets as they didn’t want them poking their noses around them. They weren’t really here for all the attention and praise, unlike the rest.

“Grandpa, dad, I can’t believe this. We’re actually going inside Wonka’s factory.” Charlie expressed to his father and grandfather.

“Me neither, Charlie. Just imagine the possibilities.” Grandpa Joe said.

“At least we won’t have to starve anymore.” Mr. Bucket replied.

“I think I should be the one to enter the factory first. After all, my daddy gets me anything I want. All I have to do is scream for it.” said Veruca to the reporters.

“Yes, she’s quite a banshee, she is.” Mrs. Salt replied.

“All it took for me was to have my workers at my own factory unwrap Wonka Bars as I have previously mentioned.” said Mr. Salt to the camera.

“Augustus, _mein zuckerplum_. Don’t eat too fast. You’ll need room for later.” Mrs. Gloop reminded her chubby son.

“And make sure you wipe your face.” Mr. Gloop added as he wiped the access chocolate off Augustus’s lips with a handkerchief.

“Remember, Violet. Eyes on the prize.” Mrs. Beauregarde informed her daughter, using her inner coach.

“Nobody is a winner, but me. Success is everything.” recited Violet, using a famous mantra she and her mother use.

“Look, dad, we’re on TV! Hi, mom! We’re finally here! How do I look!” shouted Mike as he waved at the camera, hoping his mother and friends back at home were catching this moment.

“Looking at these other kids just makes me sick.” Mr. Bucket muttered angrily.

“You and me both.” Grandpa Joe agreed automatically.

At exactly 9:47, the children decided to take the moment to get to know one another while the adults spoke to the press and the media.

“So you’re that fat glutton from Germany, am I right?” Violet asked Augustus while smacking her gum between her teeth.

“I’m not fat, I’m just pleasantly plump. But _ja_ , I am from Germany.” said Augustus with a nod before taking another bite of his chocolate bar.

“How much do you eat? Like more than three times a day?” Mike asked. “You know overeating isn’t good for your health and figure, especially eating chocolate.”

“ _Ich kenne_ , but I just can’t help myself. They’re just so delicious!” chirped Augustus.

“Ugh, I’m surrounded by the worst people in my whole life.” Veruca complained. “A poor kid, an oversized pig, a gum-smacking athlete and a lazy kid who wastes his time in front of the telly.”

“Oh, shut up!” Mike barked, feeling insulted. “I am not lazy.”

“Then how, may I ask, did you find your Golden Ticket.” asked Violet.

“Pfft.” He scoffed. “All I had to do was track the manufacturing dates, offset by the weather and the derivative of the Nikkei Index. A retard could figure that out.”

“So in other words, you cheated.” Violet remarked. “And yet, you could’ve just bought a whole mountain of chocolate bars.”

“I don’t wanna waste my time and money on a bunch of chocolate bars.” Mike retorted. “Besides, I’m not really a fan of chocolate anyway.”

Veruca only rolled her eyes hypocritically at the American boy’s ignorance, feeling like she was wasting her time talking to people she has no care for as just wants to go inside the factory pronto.

“What about you?” Augustus asked Charlie with his mouth full. “How did you find a ticket?”

“Well, I…….I had only two tries at finding one.” Charlie began. “You see, I only get at least one chocolate bar a year on my birthday.”

“Shocker.” Violet quipped sarcastically before blowing a bubble with her gum.

“The first try was no good. Then my Grandpa Joe had my purchase another with his money. Still no ticket. But then I soon bought another one using a fifty pence piece I found in the street yesterday and, to my shock, I finally found one.”

“So you found one by only opening three bars.” Mike asked.

“Yeah. Something like that.” nodded Charlie.

“Speaking of which, how on earth does a gum-chewer such as yourself find a Golden Ticket?” Veruca asked Violet, quite rudely.

“That’s a secret I’ll nobody. Ever. Not a single soul.” Violet said while chewing her gum.

“Well, I just to let you all know that I wish you all the best of luck.” said Charlie, trying his best to be nice.

“Don’t tempt me, commoner.” Veruca rolled her eyes.

“I don’t need luck, because I know the winner’s gonna be me. I’ve won the Junior World Champion Gum-Chewer competition for four years straight.” gloated Violet.

“Oh, please. If anyone is going to win that special prize, it’s me!” fought Veruca.

“Hey, hey, stop! No fighting! No fighting!” shouted Augustus, getting between the two girls and separating them before things got ugly. “We haven’t even gone inside yet.”

“Let’s just say, ‘May the best kid win’.” Mike interjected.

“I always do.” Violet remarked boastfully, smirking with pride.

The clock at struck 10:00 AM, signaling that it was now that time. The children hurried to their parents’ sides and waited in front of the gates like everyone else did. The church clock chimes the hour in the distance as the entire crowd grew heavily silent. Charlie gripped his father and grandfather’s hands in a tight squeeze as they kept their eyes on the gates. The wait was painful. But then, finally, the large iron gates began to slowly open. The children smiled gleefully. Grandpa Joe could hardly keep his own excitement steady for a hot second. But then they all held their attention toward the front entrance of the factory. At that very minute, they began to open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehe! Cliffhanger at the end. I couldn't help myself. Well, anyway, we shall all meet Mr. Wonka in the next chapter. I applaud your patience.


	7. Mr. Willy Wonka

The entire crowd of wide, expectant eyes kept on the slowly opening front entrance door waiting ever so patiently for the man himself to make an appearance. There was nothing but darkness inside, but nevertheless, the lucky children waited with anticipation and increasing glee mentally for the famous chocolatier to come out. Charlie seemed the most anxious of the five as this moment could change his life forever for the better.

Then finally, after what felt like an eternity of tedious and painful waiting, a slender man clad in black garments and wearing a black top hat stepped out of the darkness from within and out onto the snow-covered pavement before the entire crowd. He was walking with a peculiar cane, just casually strolling forwards towards the people before him. Everyone roared and cheered with screams of delight to actually having a long-awaited glimpse of the reclusive, but brilliant confectionary genius known to the entire world as Mr. Willy Wonka!

However, when he had gone about a few feet further towards the onlookers, their loud voices of glee and excitement slowly faded away as they all got a more clearer and discernible view of him. For some reason, something about Mr. Wonka made him seem a little off-putting and, well, odd. The first unnerving thing was his face. He had extremely ghostly pale skin, whiter than a blanket of snow or cotton and he wore makeup. Not the type of makeup women wear, but the facepaint type of makeup, which gave off that frightening vibe. He had no eyebrows, blackness surrounding his eyes like an exaggerated and overdone form of eyeshadow that appeared to leak down his cheeks. The one on his left eye had these swirling tendril-like formations that ended with colorful tips. One was blue, one green and one yellow. There was black lipstick on his lips, his ears covered with an unnecessary amount of piercings.

The next thing was his hair which was done up in a thick, spiky mohawk, leaving the sides of his head shaved-off completely and adorned with line patterned tattoos. That black hair also appeared to have a singular ponytail that just dangles on the front on it’s own. As for his garbs, the majority of it was black to match his style; a black jacket, a spiked choker around his neck pants held by a belt with a buckle in the shape of two W’s on top of each other, shoes and vest. Above all, everything about him physically made him look like a Goth or heavy metal rock star. He also held an emotionless, smileless expression of his face, as if he indifferent to the fact that he was having children visit his factory.

Even Charlie felt his own smile vanish from his face once he digested the look of his beloved idol. He wasn’t anything at all what he was expecting. The other children’s face mirrored his own, having similar thoughts about Mr. Wonka, as the man in question got closer and closer to his visitors and they wondered if there was something about him that they never knew.

When Mr. Wonka had got about a few more inches closer, he accidentally dropped his cane on the ground and continued further before realising what had happened and then stopped in his tracks. He then suddenly began to fall forwards, appearing to be about to fall flat on his face on the ground as Charlie let out a slight gasp of worry………….but then Mr. Wonka saved the fall with a somersault closer to the entire crowd and landed with a funny little dance in the snow and ended with a skip in his feet in front of everyone with his arms out and a huge mischievous and sly smile on his face.

At this, everyone once again cheered upon his tiny opening act method and Charlie grinned as well along with a chuckle to see that his idol was a rather mischievous young man. Willy Wonka smiled at everyone as they praised him, cheered for him now that he was within their viewpoint, glad to have so many fans. He laid his lively eyes on the five lucky children and grinned, revealing his pearly whites.

“Welcome, my young children! Welcome to my glorious factory!” He called out to them enthusiastically, then beckoned them forward. “Will you come forward for me, please? And do show me your tickets and lend me a name if you will. Any name will do.”

It was the fat, German boy, the winner of the first Golden Ticket, who stepped forward first with his parents, much to the anger of Veruca, with an animated look on his chubby face.

“I’m Augustus Gloop.” He greeted.

“Augustus!” chirped Mr. Wonka, shaking his meaty hand up and down. “My dear boy, so good to finally see you! So delighted and charmed to have you with us today! Oh, and these are your parents? Fantastic! Come in! Just past those gates _puh-lease_.”

“My name is Veruca Salt.” said Veruca, pompously stepping forward next. “A pleasure to finally meet you.”

“My dear Veruca! What a pleasure it is indeed!” Mr. Wonka said, giving her hand a small kiss like a true gentleman, making Veruca smirk with pride. “What a most peculiar name. I always thought a “veruca” was like a wart on the sole of your foot. But I could be wrong. Anyone or anything can be a “veruca”. If you and your parents could join the Gloops please?”

Violet was the next child to join hands with Mr. Wonka as she chewed away at her record gum.

“Violet Beauregarde. I play to win.” She greeted with her jaw moving as she chewed while speaking.

“Ah, Miss. Beauregarde. I do enjoy a girl with competitive spirit.” Mr. Wonka said giving her hand a shake before meeting eyes with her mother. “And you must her mother, are you not?”

“Mrs. Beauregarde.” She said seductively with half-lidded eyes and a cutesy smile to win any man over. “And I’m single. That is, if you’re interested.”

“Madam, if God invented love, why not had he invented the internet?” joked Mr. Wonka before having her and Violet join the others when Mike came up to introduce himself.

“Mike Teavee.” The boy greeted.

“Why, Mike, nice to have you here!” Mr. Wonka smiled and shook his hand. “The boy who loves to watch television, am I right? I hear you’re into those gorey cowboy shows.”

“Oh, yeah.” nodded Mike in agreement. “I’ve always wanted to grow up to use a real gun. I have a whole collection of toy guns back at home.”

“Wow. Lucky you.” said Mr. Wonka. “Do please join them over there, if you don’t mind.”

After all the four children had their introductions, Charlie felt nervous about finally meeting Mr. Wonka. So he mustered up the courage to step forward with his father and grandfather and held out a brave hand to shake his.

“Charlie Bucket, sir.” He said in a shaky voice.

“Charlie!” cried Mr. Wonka with a wide, toothy grin. “Well, well, well! So you’ve come after all! The brave lad who found the last ticket just yesterday. Lucky it managed to slip into your hands in just the nick of time, eh? I read about you in the morning papers! So glad for you indeed! And you’re his father and grandfather?”

“Yes, I am!” Grandpa Joe smiled joyfully. “Joe Bucket.”

“I’m his father, Mr. Wonka.” Mr. Bucket replied. “In case you’re wondering, he’s the father of my wife.”

“Oh, yes, of course!” said Mr. Wonka. “Delighted to make your acquaintance! Overjoyed! Enraptured! Enchanted! Enthralled! Alright, everybody here? All five winners! Yes? Good! On we go! If you’ll please follow me. Our tour is about to begin! But do keep together and try not to wander off by yourselves! I’d hate to lose each of you during these proceedings! Oh, heavens, no!”

With everyone in a group, Wonka led the entire group towards the factory entrance. As Charlie glanced over his shoulder, he saw the iron gates slowly start to shut with the crowd still trying to squeeze through them and shouting over each other. With one last look of the outside world, Charlie stepped into the darkness with everyone else as the front door closed. He then found himself inside of a large corridor. The lobby of the factory, perhaps.

“And here we are!” began Mr. Wonka as he took his hat off and flung it over to the top of a coat hanger. “Please hang your coats and hats on the pegs over there, please. It’s nice and warm inside. But forgive me if it’s a little too warm for your liking. Because my workers are used to extremely hot climates. They just can’t stand the cold.”

“But who are the workers?” asked Augustus curiously while unzipping his coat.

“All in good time, my dear boy.” answered Mr. Wonka. “You’ll see everything as we go along.”

“It’s so nice in here.” whispered Charlie to his two relatives.

“I know. And what a delicious smell!” said Grandpa Joe as all three of them took a deep whiff of the most wonderful smell of sweet, rich chocolate, the smell of roasting coffee and burnt sugar and melting fudge, mints, violets, crushed hazelnuts, apple blossoms, caramel, lemon peel and much more.

“It sure beats the smell of cabbage everyday.” remarked Mr. Bucket.

“I’ll say.” agreed Grandpa Joe. “I sure can’t wait to see the rest of the place.”

Mr. Wonka froze stiffly when he overheard that that sentence and looked as if he had been asked a difficult question and was struggling to find the best, suitable answer.

“Here’s the thing.” He began seriously. “I just want the children to come along with me.”

“What?!” shouted the collection of adults in a chorus of mirrored screams of protest.

“You gotta be joking!"

“You’re off your bleeding nut, Wonka!”

“I can’t let Mike out of my sight for one minute!”

“Now, listen! Listen to me please!” cooed Mr. Wonka with his hands up in the air attempting to settle the parents and guardians down so that he may speak. “As it was stated on the Golden Tickets, only the children will go along the tour with me while you, the parents, will be on a seperate tour. I’ll have you all know that this factory is the biggest factory you’ll ever see in your lives. So many rooms, so many stuff to see and I promise none of you will miss out.”

Before the parents would argue any further, Mr. Wonka put his fingers to his lips and let out a whistle that echoed throughout the factory. After a few seconds, a young man with olive skin and dark chestnut hair entered through barely-visible door through the wall.

“Yes, sir?” He asked.

“Ah, there you are, my wandering willow. Come here! Come here!” cried Mr. Wonka, gesturing for the man to come to his side. The chocolatier placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and looked at his guests.

“Now this here is Mombawamarra, a dear associate of mine. But you can call him “Momba” for short.” introduced Mr. Wonka. “He’ll be taking you parents on a tour throughout sections of the factory while I look after the children.”

“But we-”

“No objections? Great! Splendid!” cheered Mr. Wonka.

The adults were against the idea of letting their children out of their sight while they go on the grand tour, but they knew Wonka was not the type of person to allow them to walk straight into danger and he was the greatest man ever known. It would be crime to argue with the man’s demands, so they reluctantly agreed to his terms.

“Very well, then. You behave yourself. Alright, Veruca, darling?” said Mr. Salt.

“Yes, daddy.” Veruca said with an innocent grin, but on the inside, she was actually screaming in anger over the fact that she won’t have her father around getting her stuff when she demands it.

“Try not to lose your temper, sweetheart.” Mrs. Salt ordered strictly. “And always listen to Mr. Wonka."

“Yes, mummy.” responded Veruca.

“You better behave yourself, too, Mike.” said Mr. Teavee to his son sternly. “Or else you’ll be watching the news for a week. Understand?”

“I will.” Mike gulped upon to horrific thought of sitting through boring news announcements on television.

“Watch what you eat, my dear Augustus.” Mrs. Gloop warned her beloved son.

“Don’t eat too much, either.” added Mr. Gloop.

“Okay, mom and dad.” Augustus said and hugged them.

“Don’t lose your competitive spirit, Violet. And remember,” reminded Mrs. Beauregarde to her daughter before they both recited, “Eyes on the prize. Nobody is a winner, but me. Success is everything.”

“Good.” Mrs. Beauregarde smiled before kissing her on the forehead. “Be good and win good.”

“Be safe, Charlie.” Grandpa Joe said as he and Mr. Bucket embraced Charlie in a warm embrace. “Don’t miss anything. Not a single thing. I want to hear all about it afterwards, okay?”

“Yes, grandpa.” nodded Charlie.

“You listen to Mr. Wonka.” Mr. Bucket told him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He shared a last hug before breaking apart. Momba lead the adult over to a set of double doors.

“Now folks, if you all just follow me. There’s so much to see.” Momba announced, heading through the doors, leading the grownups down another smaller corridor.

“Have fun, everybody. Enjoy yourselves. Bye bye now.” Wonka waved as they left through the doors following Momba.

“And you kids have any trouble, just ca-” They tried to get a word in to their children to notify them in case anything happens.

“Everything’s thing. Everything will be fine. Catch y’all later.” Mr. Wonka closed the doors on them immediately before they could say anything else and turned to face the children.

“Well, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get a move on, kids.” said Mr. Wonka as he led them down the large corridor. “Now this is the main corridor, children. _La base même des opérations_ , if you will. And I assure you all that nothing bad or dangerous will happen. Oh! That reminds me. I almost forgot. This is just in case anything does happen.”

Mr. Wonka stopped abruptly as he reached into his jacket and pulled a rolled up piece of parchment paper and unrolled it in front of the kids to reveal it to be some sort of waiver. The text seems to shrink in size as it goes on. The top print letters are larger than the rest while everything else gets smaller and smaller until everything at the bottom is miniscule and hardly readable. You’d have to squint to use a magnifying glass to read what it said. Charlie took it first to have a look at him for himself to try and read it. The rest of the children joined around him to have a look as well, voicing their shared confusion.

“‘Whereas the management cannot be held responsible……..’” Charlie read to himself softly and muttered incoherently, reading the rest quickly. “‘......floods, fire, frost or frippery’?”

“‘Accidents’? What kind of accidents?” asked Mike.

“I didn’t know we had to sign anything for this tour.” Augustus responded with a raised eyebrow.

“I can’t read what it says on the bottom.” Violet spoke out loud, blowing a bubble with her gum. “What is all this, Mr. Wonka?”

“Standard form of contract.” He shrugged innocently. “That’s not a crime, is it?”

“I don’t know this is a good idea.” Charlie said nervously. “I’d have to have my parents’ permission before I can sign things like this.”

“Well, you don’t sign, you can’t go in. You're excluded from the tour.” Mr. Wonka explained with a smug smirk. “Sorry, kids. Rules of the house.”

“I’m going in that factory if it kills me! Don’t you commoners dare get in my way!” hissed Veruca, snatching the waiver out of Charlie’s hands. “Now what do I sign it with?”

“Why, this, my dear Veruca.” Mr. Wonka said handing her a black pen, to which Veruca impatiently grabbed and wrote down her name at the bottom.

Violet grabs it from her and the contract after she was done before signing her own name. She hands it to Mike, who signs it next and gives it to Augustus for him to sign. After that, Charlie had the contract and wrote down his own name. He rolled the paper up and handed it, along with the pen, back to Mr. Wonka.

“Everyone signed? Great! Shall we?” Mr. Wonka said as he waded down the corridor with the children following close behind. Along the way, the children looked at each other with confused and suspicious glances as their minds boggled with unanswered questions. Like, why would he have them sign a liability waiver without their parent’s permission? And judging by what it said, it looked as if Mr. Wonka wasn’t going to take responsibility should they ever suffer any untold accidents or injuries and such. But that was only a theory. An opinion. Doesn’t mean it was automatically true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you guys have it. You we've finally met Mr. Wonka himself! But there's something strange about him. I mean, he is eccentric and somewhat creepy what with all the Gothic makeup and hairstyle, but he's hiding something. You'll find out soon enough. So this is the part where the children had to be separated from their parents and guardians. What could that mean to you guys? The contract scene is a reference to the scene from the 1971 film. See you all in later chapters!


	8. The Chocolate Room

And so the tour had begun. The group followed the corridor with the five children tagging behind Mr. Wonka. He led them to the right down a much narrower passage and they were going down separate hallways and passages that went in different directions from left to right and such. The foundation was like going through and rabbit warren or an ant colony in such a way that these passages where just leading nearly everywhere in all directions. Then suddenly, without a doubt, the children noticed the new hallway they were in seem to appear smaller as they walked further, leading right to a door with a sign that said: “ **THE CHOCOLATE ROOM** ”.

“A very important room, this!” Mr. Wonka explained stopping in front of the door and turned to face the children before taking a bunch of keys out and using one to unlock the door. “After all, this is the nerve centre of the whole factory. The heart of the whole business. So beautiful, in fact, that you won’t want to part from such a view. Before we go in, I must warn you. Do be careful, my dear children. Don’t lose your heads. Don’t get overexcited. Just keep very calm.”

The children all shared eyeful looks full of surprise and wonder before Mr. Wonka gave them all a wide smile before slowly opening the door saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the Chocolate Room.”

Once the doors were wide open, each of the children held back a gasp of surprise on the truly amazing sight before their very eyes. It was very large, open valley of pure beauty as Mr. Wonka stated. An giant valley of green meadows and hills with the most outlandish-looking trees that one has never seen before and bushes; weeping willows, alders, tall clumps of rhododendrons with pink and red mauve blossoms. Glades and flora of unnatural color patterns. It clicked in the children’s minds that everything in this very room was made completely of the finest candy Wonka has ever invented. Lollipops and chocolate truffles and candy canes galore! But that wasn’t the only thing that caught their gaze. For between these rapturous lands of confectionary was a light brown river that flowed gently through. There was even a bridge that went over the river for one to get across. Along with the river, the most astonishing of all the sights in this room, was a large waterfall that would put Niagara Falls to shame. It poured from a towering, steep cliff and rained down like a morning shower and landing in the river in a boiling and churning whirlpool of froth and spray.

If the waterfall wasn’t the most tremendous enough, then try checking those wide glass pipes that were dangling from a mechanism hanging up above the ground on a track on the ceiling. The enormous pipes lower into the brown water and suck them up, carrying them away to who knows where. You could see the liquid flowing upwards as it’s being sucked up. The children’s reactions to such a marvelous sight was unfathomable. Augustus’s reaction to seeing a huge valley made of candy was the most shocking to him that he forgot about the chocolate bar he was currently eating. Too flabbergasted to speak or even breathe. Everyone stood in surprise and bewildered as they took a moment or two to sink in the hugeness of the room.

“That river, my dear children, is all chocolate.” Mr. Wonka explained while leading the children across the bridge as it gestured his cane towards the river. “Every drop of that river is hot, melted chocolate of the finest quality. The very finest. Why, that’s enough chocolate to fill every bathtub in the country. Perhaps even the world. Even swimming pools. And those pipes over there suck up the chocolate and carry it away all over the factory to every rooms where it’s needed. Thousands of gallons an hour. Thousands upon thousands of gallons.”

“That’s a lot of chocolate.” Augustus replied with a look of hunger and dumbfoundedness.

“Indeed.” agreed Mr. Wonka stepping before them. “And the waterfall is most important. It mixes the chocolate. Churns it up. Pounds it and beats it. Makes it light and frothy. You know, no other factory in the world mixes it’s chocolate by waterfall. But it’s the only way to do it just right. And do you like my trees and the bushes? Aren’t they just pretty? Well, of course, they are, you silly fools! I just ate ugliness. I cannot abide ugliness in my factory! Do you like my meadow? The grass and the buttercups. They’re all eatable. Everything in this room is eatable. From the trees to the very grass that you’re standing on right now. Made from a new kind of soft, minty sugar I’ve invented. I like to call it a “swudge”. Please try a blade. Please do. It’s so delectable.”

The children looked below them at the green grass at their feet with curiosity. If what Wonka said was true, then it must really be edible. So without needing further instructions, they all bent down to pick up a blade of the grass. Augustus, however, grabbed a big handful of grass and ripped it right out of the ground and stuffed it all into his mouth. Violet took her record-breaking gum out of her mouth and stuck it behind her ear temporarily before tasting her blade.

“It’s wonderful!” Charlie cried.

“Why, thank you.” said Mr. Wonka with a smile. “Go ahead then. Help yourselves.”

With that, the children all dispersed and scattered in all directions to try some other delicacies in this valley of candy. There were so many to choose from and so many to try. Violet picked a candy apple from a tree next to the chocolate river and munched on it. Gum tasted better to her, but this apple was not like any other. Mike was trying to reach some from a tall candy tree, but he was too small. Mr. Wonka came by and smacked at the tree with his cane, causing some pieced of gummies to fall to the ground. Mike instantly dropped to the ground and grab a handful. He ate one and it leaked a flavorful juice the second he chewed it. The spoiled brat, Veruca was picking up the first thing she lays her eyes on; a swirly lollipop she picked from a lollipop tree, some lemon-flavored buttercups, chocolate truffles, a grape-flavored lavender flower, she just couldn’t stop herself. She even went so far as to steal a jelly-filled pumpkin that Mike was about to help himself with.

“Hey, I was about to eat that!” complained Mike.

“I don’t care! It’s mine now!” Veruca hissed walking away and leaving him fuming, but he searched for something else to much on.

Charlie found a large candy ball of some sort that reminded of a jawbreaker. The world’s biggest jawbreaker to be exact. He examined it and wondered how he was going to eat this. He found a rock made of rock candy and tried bashing on it to crack it open. However, it only took one bash for it to crack open as the layer wasn’t that hard. Charlie opened it up to reveal a jelly-like substance with an assortment of colors and tiny fragments of rock candy in it. He start eating with his hand. And was that flavor ever delightful!

“So I hear you’re poor.” He heard Violet’s voice close to him and he jumped, stopping his snack for a moment to see her standing there, giving him an indifferent look.

“I-I-I wouldn’t really call it that. We’re just low on money.” Charlie explained while stuttering.

“Which means poor.” piped Violet, eating a jelly bean the size of an easter egg. “Never took you for one to actually find a Golden Ticket.”

“Well, I just got lucky.” Charlie shrugged, eating the rest of his jelly candy. “Miracles can happen in the best of places.”

“Understatement of the year.” Violet retorted sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “Listen, I’m here to do what I do best. And that is to win that special prize. I know it’s gonna be me. I’ve won over a dozen trophies the past few years. What have you won, loser? The Poor and Stupid Contest?”

“That not-”

“Yeah, whatever. Just stay out of my way so I can win this contest fair and square and we won’t have any problems. Got it?” Violet demanded, looking Charlie dead in the eyes, giving him the signal that she is not someone to be crossed.

“Uh, okay.” He nodded obediently.

“Good.” Violet took another bite of her jelly bean egg and left him sitting here.

Augustus, on the other hand, as you would’ve guessed, was literally munching his way through every section of the valley. Stuffing the first thing in his mouth and gobbling it up like a hungry pig. He was in actually candy heaven, blind to the rest of the world, not wanting to waste the golden opportunity in his wondrous paradise. He eat up grass more than a cow, wolfing down cream from a giant mushroom, biting through the branches of a milk chocolate tree, making a mess on his face as he stuffed his face like there was no tomorrow. He just couldn’t stop eating. He just ate and ate and ate.

Meanwhile, while Veruca was eating through her collection of goods, something caught her eye and made them widen like flying saucers. She screamed with excitement, which alerted the rest of the group. She pointed to the other side of the river while everyone gathered around her.

“Look! Look over there!” She shouted while pointing. “What is it? Is it a little person? Is it a little man? Down there by the waterfall!”

Everyone’s eyes almost bulged. There was a small person on the other side of the river near the waterfall performing labor. It was quick small compared to the children. At first, they thought it was a midget. But a midget would reach approximately above or below your waist. This man was about the size of Jack Russell dog. He had dark brown skin and black hair in a curious style. There was white tribal finger paint patterns on his face reminiscent of African tribe natives. He wore a leather uniform with the same W’s symbol on the chest. He was working some kind of jackhammer while the children gazed upon him with confusion.

“Now we know who the mysterious workers are!”

“Oh my gosh, there’s two of them!”

“There’s more than two!”

“What are they?”

“Where do they come from?”

“Who are they?” asked Charlie, gobsmacked beyond imagination.

There were more of them working as they collected chocolate and candy and working tiny vehicles fit for them. They were no smaller than dolls. Despite being oddly similar, they all had different looks of their own and seperate genders.

“They can’t be real people.” Violet said with disbelief.

“Of course, they’re real people. They’re Oompa-Loompas.” Mr. Wonka told them.

“Oompa-Loompas?!” The children all shouted in unison, voicing their shared thoughts on the subject.

“Imported direct from Loompaland.” explained Mr. Wonka.

“There’s no such place.” Mike argued.

“Excuse me, young man-”

“Mr. Wonka,” started Mike. “My dad teaches geography in high school. So I really don’t bel-”

“Then you’ll know all about it and, oh, what a terrible country it is.” interrupted Mr. Wonka. “It was just 9 years ago. I was on a solo expedition, hunting for exotic new flavors for my candies. There was nothing, but endless, thick, misty jungles infested by the most dreaded of beasts no man has ever seen and lived to tell about it. Hornswogglers and snozzwangers and those terrible, wicked whangdoodles. A whangdoodle would eat at least two or more Oompa-Loompas, but they love to eat anything that smells terrible. Trust me. You’d make sure to shower before encountering one of them and carry lots of deodorant. Finally, I found the Oompa-Loompas living treehouses. They lived in the high trees to be safe from the dangerous predators that lived on the ground below and they lived on nothing but green caterpillars, which tasted revolting! They would spend the days climbing through their treehouses, looking for other things to mash up with the caterpillars to make them taste better. Red beetles, eucalyptus leaves, the bark from the bong-bong trees, all of them beastly. But not quite so beastly as the caterpillars. But the food they longed for the most was the cocoa bean. But they didn’t grow very often around Loompaland, so they were scarce. An Oompa-Loompa was lucky enough to find at least three or four cocoa beans a year. Oh, how they craved them. They would dream about them all night and talk about them all day. Now, the cocoa bean, which grows on the cocoa tree, happens to be the thing from which chocolate is made. You can’t make chocolate without cocoa beans. I, myself, use billions of them every week in this factory. And I realized at that moment that my factory could use workers like them. So I informed the chief in their native tongue, “Look here, if you and your people come back to my country and live with me in my factory, you can have all the cocoa beans you want. I’ll even pay your wages in cocoa beans if you wish.” And so I shipped them over here. Every man, woman and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe. Of course, I taught them some English among other things and they just love to sing and dance. Although, I must warn you that they are quite mischievous. Always with the jokes.”

“What’s Augustus doing over there?” Mike asked everyone, changing the subject to direct their attention over to the fat boy across the river who was now drinking from the chocolate river with his dirty, bare hands. Scooping up a handful of chocolate water and slurping it into his mouth as fast as he could.

“Hey, Augustus!” shouted Mr. Wonka to the German glutton with a strict, but half-assed attempt to dissuade him of what he was doing. Even Charlie noticed that wasn’t barely angry or worried in the slightest. He was quite neutral and emotionless, despite the fat boy gorging on the river, possibly getting it filthy. “I beg of you not to do that! My chocolate must be untouched by human hands!”

But, of course, the candyman’s cries fell upon deaf ears as all Augustus could hear was the call of his rumbling stomach and he just kept drinking from the sweet brown river, leaning a bit further out while the children just watched. Charlie seemed worried for the boy’s life while Mr. Wonka just stood there and watched with indifference, as though he didn’t care that his precious, perfect chocolate was being ruined. Then all of the sudden, Augustus leaned out too far that he suddenly slipped and fell right into the river with a splash.

The kids all gasped when this happened. Augustus resurfaced with a deep inhale and began flailing about the river helplessly, trying his best to stay afloat. He wasn’t the best swimmer and he was on the verge of drowning in the one thing that he loved most of all. The children all shared looks of shock as they nearly feared for the boy’s life. It was quite unknown whether Mr. Wonka expected this kind of turn of events or not, but the look on his face made it seem like he did as he just nonchalantly let his eyes wander as if his thoughts were elsewhere, just casually minding his own business.

“He could drown!” cried Mike.

“I don’t think he can swim!” Charlie shouted with fear to Mr. Wonka. “We have to do something!”

“What can I do?” Mr. Wonka asked, acting like he didn’t understand. “The boy just merely slipped into my perfect chocolate.”

“Wait!” Charlie ran off to find something to help pull Augustus back onto land.

Mr. Wonka held a slight smirk when he noticed the pipes start to approach the river and he knew what this meant. Thankfully, Charlie had grabbed some long licorice-like rope and rushed to the edge of the river.

“Augustus, grab hold of this!” Charlie screamed as he through the rope out onto the brown water and out to the drowning German boy. Augustus was able to grab it in time as Charlie started pulling with all his might to bring Augustus to safety. Unknown to him, Mr. Wonka held a unusual glare towards the boy’s effort in saving the fat boy contaminating his river. All the while, Mike noticed something far off in the river a few feet from Augustus that caught him off guard. A large pair what looked like the fins of a fish protruding from the surface of the river just slowly, though eerily closer to the boy in the water. Nobody else seemed to notice this, not even Charlie. Then the fins disappeared under the liquid chocolate out of sight, making Mike feel unnerved.

“You’re almost there, Augustus!” grunted Charlie, putting as much strength into his pulling as Augustus was quite heavy. Finally, Augustus was nearing closer to land, but when it seemed that his troubles were over, something grabbed him from under the water and yanked him straight under in seconds. The force of the yank caused the rope to snap. Charlie cried out for Augustus helplessly, but to no avail. The rest of the children, who barely helped Charlie out, looked rather startled. That glare on Mr. Wonka’s face was replaced with a look of satisfaction.

“Augustus!” cried Charlie. “Help, police, murder! Where is he?”

“Watch.”

The large, glass pipe lowered into the river and started sucking up the chocolate, but then Augustus appeared inside of the pipe going upwards while they all watched breathlessly.

“There he goes!” shouted Mike.

“It’s a wonder how that pipe is even big enough.” Violet wondered out loud.

“It isn’t big enough. At least not for him.” Charlie said. “He’s slowing down.”

“He’s going to stick!” Mike replied.

Because of Augustus’s huge weight, the pipe was barely enough for him to all the way through, despite how enormous it was. When he had gone up about a quarter up the pipe, his large belly caused him to slow down and come to a stop, leaving the poor boy stuck where he was inside the pipe and covered in chocolate.

“I think he has.” Veruca said, eating a lavender flower. “It’s his stomach that’s done that.”

“He’s blocked the whole pipe.” Charlie said.

“How long is he gonna be in there?” asked Violet.

“Not too long, I hope.” Mr. Wonka answered, hiding his satisfied glee behind a false facade of worry. “Just so long as the pressure beneath him builds up to clear out the blockage.”

Then at that moment, the remaining children overheard a strange melody coming from the other side of the river. The Oompa-Loompas were starting to hop and dance while humming and scatting a small, increasing tune with music building up.

“What are those Oompa-Loompas doing?” asked Charlie.

“Why, I believe they’re going to sing us a song.” said Mr. Wonka with a pleased grin.

The Oompa-Loompas all stopped in the middle of their work to gather around the area together, mobilizing around Mr. Wonka, the children and the stuck Augustus as they continued their music before they all stopped and began to dance in unison while singing a song as a group.

 _Augustus Gloop, Augustus Gloop_  
_The great, big, greedy nincompoop!_  
_How long can we allow this beast_  
_To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast_  
  
_Augustus Gloop, so unutterably vile_  
_So greedy, foul and infantile_  
_He left a most disgusting taste_  
_Inside our mouths and so in haste_

 _“Come on!” we cried. “The time is ripe!_  
_To send him shooting up the pipe!”_  
_But don’t, dear children, be alarmed_  
_Augustus Gloop will not be harmed_  
_Augustus Gloop will not be harmed_

 _Although, of course, we must admit_  
_He will be altered quite a bit_  
_He’ll be quite changed from what he’s been_  
_When he goes through the fudge machine_  
_Slowly, the wheels go round and round_  
_And cogs begin to grind and pound_

 _We’ll boil him for a minute more,_  
_Until we’re absolutely sure_  
_That all the greed and all the gall_  
_Is boiled away for once and all_

 _Then out he comes! And now! By grace!_  
_A miracle has taken place_  
_A miracle has taken place_  
_This boy, who only just before_  
_Was loathed by men from shore to shore_

 _This greedy brute, this louse’s ear_  
_Is loved by people everywhere!_  
_For who could hate or bear a grudge_  
_Against a lucious bit of fudge?_

Suddenly, the pressure under Augustus became so strong that he rocketed up the pipe like how a bullet comes out of a gun when the trigger is pulled. The poor boy has disappeared into the chocolate that he loved so much. The tune and music among the Oompa-Loompas slowly faded as they all dispersed to continue their work. The children, mainly Charlie, were disturbed by the tiny pygmys’ lyrics. Mr. Wonka, on the other hand, applauded the Oompa-Loompas’ performance with abundant enthusiasm.

“Bravo! Bravo!” He cheered joyfully as he clapped. “I told you they loved singing! Aren’t they delightful? Aren’t they charming? But don’t believe a word they said. It’s all nonsense.”

“Are you sure?” asked Charlie.

“I’m positive! That boy will be perfectly fine.” said Mr. Wonka.

“Where does that pipe go to anyway? Can’t you like call the fire brigade or something?” asked Mike, unusually worried.

“I wouldn’t worry a damn thing about that. Augustus is just going on a little journey, that’s all.”

“Do you think he’ll be made into marshmallows?” asked Violet, chewing her record gum again.

“Impossible!” cried Mr. Wonka as if he were insulted. “Unthinkable! Inconceivable! Absurd! That could never happen!”

“Why not?” asked Veruca.

“Because that pipe doesn’t go anywhere near the marshmallow room. It goes straight to the room where I produce the most delicious strawberry-flavoured, chocolate-coated fudge.” explained Mr. Wonka.

“But then he’ll be made into strawberry-flavored, chocolate-coated fudge.” Charlie exclaimed. “They could be selling him by the pound all over the world tomorrow morning.”

“Of course not.” Mr. Wonka replied innocently. “The taste would be terrible. Just think about it. Augustus-flavored chocolate-coated Gloop. No one would buy it.”

Then Mr. Wonka turned his back and snapped his fingers twice. An Oompa-Loompa appeared before him and bowed in his presence. His height just went below Mr. Wonka’s knee.

“Hello there, Onyeka.” greeted Mr. Wonka with a generous grin. “I want you to head down to the Fudge Room and find Augustus. You know what to do. And make sure you poke around in the mixing barrel in order to find him.”

“Yes, sir.” nodded Onyeka as he departed to full out his task.

“Now then, off we go.” Mr. Wonka said as he headed down the path with the children following in tow.

Charlie was left to wonder what will become of Augustus. Yes, they had only met just today. But he just felt scared for what will happen to him. Surely, Mr. Wonka wouldn’t just let Augustus be turned into his chocolate bars. They wouldn't possible sell very well.


	9. The Inventing Room

Augustus found himself shooting through pipe after pipe filled with chocolate. While on the verge of drowning in seemingly-endless gallons of fudge, Augustus hoped - no, prayed - that this would end soon. And just when he was about to lose oxygen and pass out, the pipe finally ended in the Fudge Room. However, like before, his body weight stopped him from falling into that giant vat of chocolate. He was just sticking out of the opening of the pipe hung about 20 meters above the vat. There were Oompa-Loompas working there and stopped to see Augustus hanging upside-down from the pipe. Augustus started to ponder over how it could’ve lead to this. All because he let his gluttonous habits overtake his conscience? All because he loved chocolate so much that he’d actually drink from that river?

Augustus would’ve licked the chocolate off his fingers by now, but given his predicament and what he’s been through, he just didn’t have the appetite. Dropping their equipment and turning away from the machines and such for a moment, the Oompa-Loompas gathered around the giant vat, which, from their perspective, looked like a giant tank with thick-layered glass windows on the sides to see the bubbling, liquid chocolate and warning signs like “ **Caution: Hot** ”, “ **Don’t stick your fingers in the vat** ” and “ **Be wary of the Chocolagator** ”. That last one didn’t look like a sign to be ignored.

As the blood flowed upwards toward his head from being upside-down, giving him a headache, Augustus looked below to take notice of a large amount of bubbles arising from underneath where he hanged that caught him off guard. The bubbles reached the surface so fast, creating a path of foam. The Oompa-Loompa could’ve done anything to help Augustus out, but they all just stood there, watching with monotone expressions as if expecting something to happen.

Augustus tried to wiggle himself free of the constricting grip of the pipe around his abdomen, but his goal weight was too big for him to do so. However, he managed to squeeze himself through just a tiny bit, but remained stuck. Then he noticed a small handle on a rim of the pipe a few inches from him that read “Emergency”. If his theory was correct, this may or may not make the pipe loosen up enough to free him. However, as he struggled to reach for it, something broke through the surface of the chocolate water. It was the biggest creature Augustus ever laid eyes upon and it set him in survival and panic mode in no time. The creature looked like a cross between a large fish and a prehistoric dinosaur. The thing was unbelievably humongous with large dorsal fin going across its back, a long snout, a pair of fins with sharp points (or spurs) and no back legs of any kind. Not only that, but it’s scaly flesh was a light brown pigmentation; the same color as the chocolate. Like a shark arising from the ocean, the fish creature jumped right into the air at Augustus, opening wide it’s enormous jaws, spanning from 1.5 meters wide, ready to snatch its prey from the pipe and swallow him whole. But, thankfully, Augustus was a tad too far above the ground for the monster to reach him as he ducked out of the way once it snapped it mouth shut just a hair close to him.

Augustus was terrified beyond belief at this moment. He ate through the chocolate room like a cow, fell into a chocolate river, just stuck in a pipe and now here he was, about to be devoured by a giant fish monster. Whatever that emergency handle did, Augustus went against all odds and had to make a choice quick or else be fish food. Reaching over his trapped pot belly, narrowly missing the monster’s jaws once more, Augustus stretched his arm out as far as he could and finally, he grabbed it and pulled it with his best strength. Then a beeping alarm went off briefly and the pipe ascended to the ceiling, taking Augustus with it and carried away from the vat with the fish creature in it. He saw a crate full of pillow-sized marshmallows and felt the pipe slowly loosen. Jumping to the opportunity, he frantically wiggled himself around until he finally popped out completely and fell a couple stories onto the marshmallows, using them as a cushion to land safely on. Augustus let out a sigh of relief, glad to finally be free from that tight pipe and away from the jaws of death.

Now covered in chocolate, Augustus noticed the Oompa-Loompas surrounding him with eyes full of hatred, making him sweat with fear. He suddenly felt the instinct to make a break for it and that’s exactly what he did. He sprang himself up from the marshmallows and ran around the room, looking for an exit. The Oompa-Loompas tried to stop him, but because of their diminutive stature, Augustus easily evaded them by hopping over them and knocking them away. He finally found the door to the room and got it open before the tiny native workers caught up to him. With the door slightly ajar, Augustus squeezed through and ran for his life down the corridors.

* * *

Back in the Chocolate Room, the rest of the group followed Mr. Wonka toward the edge of the river. Charlie somewhat hoped Augustus was okay and Mike, on the other hand, wasn’t sure about what he saw in the river, but decided to keep it to himself. Not only because of how the others would react, but because of what Mr. Wonka might say about it. His thoughts were cut off when Mr. Wonka shouted.

“Look! Here she comes!” He was pointing out toward a steamy mist that rising up from the great, warm chocolate river. Out of the mist emerged a large boat. The most fantastic and beautiful pink boat. It was a very wide and open boat with a tall front and back, similar to those Viking ships of old. It looked to be made of the most bright, shiny, glistening pink color that made it appear to made of glass. The boat was being rowed across the light brown water by an array of oars being pulled by a mass of Oompa-Loompas. The watchers by the riverbank got an eyeful of the beautiful structure as it sailed just in front of them.

“This, children, is my private yacht.” exclaimed Mr. Wonka with pleasure. “I made her out of the best boiled rock candy. Isn’t she a beauty?”

The gleaming pink, boiled-sweet boat came to a full stop and the Oompa-Loompas rested their oars for a moment to stare at the children. Then suddenly, to some reason unknown to anyone besides them, the Oompa-Loompas broke into fits of giggles.

“What’s so funny?” asked Violet as she chewed.

“Oh, don’t mind them.” Mr. Wonka waved off. “They always like to laugh. They think anything is a joke waiting to be told. All aboard the boat, everyone! All of you! Come on, then!”

As soon as his command got through, the children all carefully stepped onto the boat and sat down safety. Mr. Wonka sat in the very back with Charlie. The chocolatier gestured for them to take them down the river and the Oompa-Loompas aboard the tiny vessel grabbed their oars and started to row the boat downriver. Mike decided to have a taste of the boat to see what flavor it was. He gave a small lick to the edge and it tasted like strawberries.

“Uh, Mike? I wouldn’t like the boat with your tongue if I were you.” Mr. Wonka warned him. “It’s similar to what lollipops are made of. The more you lick it, the stickier it gets.”

“I definitely want a boat like this!” cried Veruca with a look of eagerness. “A big, pretty, pink and sugar-sweet boat just like this!”

“What you need is therapy and pronto.” Mike said snappily.

“Excuse me?” Veruca barked with fury.

“Children, please. No fighting on my boat.” Mr. Wonka chastised them. Although, unknown to them, it looked like he was enjoying seeing them argue.

Charlie sat quietly on the seat next to Mr. Wonka while watching the landscape slowing move as the boat did. He gazed a good long look on the room and at everything he had already seen. The grassy meadows, the chocolate river, the candy trees and plants, the huge pipes, the Oompa-Loompa doing their work on the land of confectionary, the beautiful waterfall and most importantly, Mr. Willy Wonka himself. Everything so astonishing to say the least. But where were they going now? What else was there to see in his marvelous factory? What was going to happen in the next room?

Suddenly, Mr. Wonka pulled out a scooping spoon, reached down over the side of the boat and dipped it into the river, scooping up some chocolate before handing it to Charlie.

“Here, drink this.” He said. “Have a taste. It’ll do you good. You look starved to death.”

Charlie took the spoon and sipped the chocolate, drinking it down. He licked his lips and smiled. Despite Augustus falling into it, the liquid chocolate was better than any chocolate Charlie has tasted. It was a real sensation.

“It’s wonderful!” He cried with delight.

“That’s because it’s mixed by waterfall.” Mr. Wonka explained.

The boat sped up a little faster down the stream, which was started to get a narrower as they went along. The river was leading them up to a large, dark tunnel up ahead. It appeared as a giant sewer pipe with no light to reveal what direction it led to. The river was bringing the boat closer and closer to the growing, thick, pitch-black darkness ahead, causing the children to become increasingly nervous and uncomfortable. The Oompa-Loompas rowed and the stroked their oars faster and faster.

“Hey, where are we going?” asked Mike.

“I’m a little afraid of the dark.” Veruca complained, shaking with fear.

“How can they see where they’re going?” asked Violet with confusion, trying to hide her own growing edginess.

“There’s no knowing where they’re going.” said Mr. Wonka in an eerily calm and mysterious voice; one that brought chills to the children's’ spines.

As the boat rowed deeper into the unsettling blackness before them, he raised his arms and clapped his hand twice very loud, creating an echo that reverberated off the tunnel walls and just like that, on came the lights and the whole tunnel was bright in seconds. Charlie could see that it was indeed the largest tunnel and the upward-curving pipes were purely white and spotlessly clean. The chocolate river flowed extremely fast now with the Oompa-Loompas rowing like crazy and the boat rocketing across the brown water at a furious pace like a roller coaster. All the children held onto their seats and the sides of the boat with their dear lives so they won’t fall out and end up falling into river like Augustus while Mr. Wonka was calling for the Oompa-Loompas to row faster and faster all the while grinning like a maniac and laughing loudly, having the time of his life.

“Can we please slow down?” shouted Violet.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Mike moaned, getting a headache from the rapid speed.

“This isn’t funny! I want off!” Veruca screamed in terror.

“ _There’s no earthly way of knowing._ ” sang Mr. Wonka in a low tone, unfazed by the children’s panicking. “ _Which direction we are going. There’s no knowing where they’re rowing. Or which way the river’s flowing. Not a speck of life is showing, so the danger must be growing. For the rowers keep on rowing and they’re certainly no showing any signs that they are slowing!_ ”

The faster and faster the boat went along with the twisting and twirling tunnel with the children growing ever fearful of their lives. Mr. Wonka was enjoying himself compared to the rest, laughing excitedly and loving the sensation feeling the wind blowing through your hair as you’re whizzing through the rapid tunnels in a pink boat on a chocolate river. And he didn’t seem to care if his passengers weren’t enjoying the ride as much as he was. Finally, the boat started to slow down and row a bit more steady now downstream.

“Check out those doors!” Charlie shouted, pointing to the wide doors along the walls as the boat gently sailed past them. There was enough time of the children to read what many of them said. There was one that said **‘STOREROOM NUMBER 54** ” and “ **ALL THE CREAMS: DAIRY CREAM, WHIPPED CREAM, VIOLET CREAM, COFFEE CREAM, PINEAPPLE CREAM, VANILLA CREAM and HAIR CREAM** ’.

“Hair cream?” asked Violet in confusion. “What do you use hair cream for?”

“No time for silly questions, my lady.” Mr. Wonka cried.

They continued on, passing more interesting doors as they did. One was a black door that said ‘ **STOREROOM NUMBER 71: WHIPS - ALL SHAPES AND SIZES** ’.

“Whips? What are they for?” asked Veruca.

“For whipping cream, of course.” Mr. Wonka answered. “How can you whip cream without whips? Whipped cream isn’t whipped cream at all unless it’s been whipped with whips. Just like a poached egg isn’t a poached egg unless it’s been stolen from the woods in the dead of night.”

The boat then passed a bright, yellow door with the words ‘ **STOREROOM NUMBER 77: ALL THE BEANS, CACAO BEANS, COFFEE BEANS, JELLY BEANS AND HAS BEANS** ’.

“Has beans?” asked Charlie.

“Exactly!” Mr. Wonka crowed. “Row on!”

The Oompa-Loompas rowed the boat fast once again the chocolate river brought them to a stream that carried the boat at a much faster speed than before, causing the children’s hair to blow back from the currents of wind they were picking up as the pink boat picked up the pace. Charlie also held on tightly as he could. It felt very much like a roller coaster from an amusement park that’s meant to be rough on you as if it was rickety and running over a lot of bumps on the tracks. Mr. Wonka kept that ear-to-ear grin painted on his lips the entire time. After a while, the boat once again came to an abrupt stop as they came to a more steady and still part of the river and the Oompa-Loompa slowed down their rowing, bringing the boat over to a door that read **‘INVENTING ROOM - Private: Keep Out!** ’.

“Stop the boat!” commanded Mr. Wonka as he waved his cane in the air to his Oompa-Loompas. “We’re here. All ashore!”

The Oompa-Loompas all jammed their oars into the river, stopping the boat in place before carefully guiding it over to the door and docking it close enough. Breathing a sigh out of relief that the frightening boat ride was over and wanting to get off it immediately, the children all rushed off the boat and over to the door, not wanting to go through all that again because it felt more dangerous than exciting.

“Thank god that’s over.” Mike sighed.

“I’m never getting on that thing again!” Violet complained, still chewing her gum.

“I changed my mind! I don’t want a boat like this!” cried Veruca.

Mr. Wonka stood before the door and pull his keys out, but then turned to face the children to give them a serious reminder.

“Now this is the most important room in the entire factory.” He told them. “All of my most secret new inventions are cooking and simmering in this very room. Old Fickelgruber would give his front teeth to be allowed inside for about three minutes. So I want no messing around in there when we go in. No touching, no meddling and no tasting! Understood?”

“Yes.” All the children nodded. “We promise.”

“Good.” Mr. Wonka put the key into the keyhole, thus unlocking the door. “Up to now, nobody has ever been allowed in here for good measure.”

Once inside, the kids got a good view of the new room they were in. The place was huge. Not as big as the chocolate room, though. It was almost like stepping into the future. The room was filled with fizzing, whirring and steaming futuristic machines, contraptions, mechanisms and everything technological that were producing candies as they hummed their sounds like a looping musical. There were also stoves with metal pots boiling and bubbling on them. Kettles and pans hissing and sizzling and the machines everywhere just sputtering while making other whirring, retro-type sounds. Oompa-Loompas all around were running the machines and gadgets and walking on catwalks above the ground.

The children all went about the place, but were careful as to not touch or ruin any or Mr. Wonka’s candy-making devices. Charlie was observing a machine that was pouring cocoa beans into a large pot. Perhaps it was another chocolate-producing whatchimagig. Mike stood close to him and watched as well.

“I have a bad feeling.” He said.

“What do you mean?” asked Charlie.

“Do you think there’s something Mr. Wonka’s not telling us?” whispered Mike.

“Well, not exactly. I’ll be the first to admit, he’s wacky and strange.” Charlie said. “But that doesn't mean he’s a bad person. Although, he did do nothing while Augustus was drowning.”

Mr. Wonka felt like a child at Christmas in this room. It was the room he loved most of all. This was where all of his candy brainchilds come to life. He approached a stove and lifted the lid off one of the pots and took a whiff. It was a delightful scent. He dipped his finger into the bubbling yellow and red gooey stuff and tasted it. It was good, but it needed more gelignite, he thought. Violet blew a bubble as she ran over to one of the machines with Veruca.

“Mr. Wonka, what’s this over here?” Violet called to the glorious confectioner.

“Oh, that! Let me show you!” Mr. Wonka said as he rushed over with Mike and Charlie joining the group. “But please be careful. That’s my most secret and latest invention. This baby is gonna put ol’ Slugworth out of business.”

Throwing a few levers and pushing some buttons on the machine, the machine sprang to life as it worked it’s magic with Mr. Wonka gleaming wickedly at what was inside through the glass window on the side. It spat out tiny multi-colored balls with spots into the large plastic bowl on the floor. Mr. Wonka picked one of them up and held it out for all the kids to see.

“These are Everlasting Gobstoppers.” He said. “I invented these for children who are given very short allowance money. You put them in your mouth, suck on them year after year and they’ll never get any smaller!”

As soon as Mr. Wonka said their name out loud, Charlie frozen when he remembered the same words Slugworth told him in the alley yesterday. Now he began to remember everything the man had told him. Even when he warned him not to trust Willy Wonka.

“It’s like gum.” said Violet.

“Not really.” Mr. Wonka corrected. “Gum is for chewing and if you tried to chew on one of these Gobstoppers, you’d break all your teeth off. And they never get any smaller. They never disappear and never lose their flavor. Never! At least I don’t think they do. There’s on being tested as we speak in the Testing Room next door.”

Mr. Wonka went over to another invention he was working on with the girls following him, but Charlie stayed behind and held onto Mike’s arm.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mike, looking him in the eye.

“Yesterday, after I found my Golden Ticket, I ran into Slugworth himself.” Charlie whispered to him quietly.

“Seriously?” Mike whispered back with eyes the size of basketballs.

“Yes. And he told me to grab a Gobstopper and give it to him.” Charlie presumed, keeping his voice down.

“He wants you to steal from Mr. Wonka?” asked Mike silently, to which Charlie nodded. “Well, ignore him. He’s probably trying to trick you or something.”

“That’s not all he told me.” said Charlie.

“What did he say?” demanded Mike.

“He told me……..he told me not to trust Mr. Wonka.” Charlie nervously admitted.

Mike looked as if he had just discovered aliens in his backyard. While Slugworth tell him not to trust the greatest candyman that’s ever lived? But that’s to be revealed on a later date. None of that mattered at the moment. They were on a tour right now and they didn’t want to be left behind. The boys rejoined the girls with Mr. Wonka as he happily skipped over to a contraption with a saucepan filled with a gooey, purplish substance boiling to perfection.

“Now this is Hair Toffee.” explained Mr. Wonka. “You just eat a tiny nip of this and in exactly half an hour, a brand-new luscious, thick and silky crop of hair will start growing all over the top of your little head! A moustache and a beard!”

“A beard?” Veruca repeated spitefully with disbelief. “Who wants a beard?”

“You look like one. It would suit you quite as good.” Mr. Wonka remarked. “But unfortunately, the mixture isn’t quite right yet. It’s too strong. It works, but it works a little too well. I’ve tried it on an Oompa-Loompa yesterday and he grew the biggest black beard out of his head and chin. It grow so fast and long, it trailed behind him wherever he went like a king’s robe. But I’ll get it right soon! Don’t you worry. No excuse for little boys and girls to go around with bald heads.”

“But, Mr. Wonka, boys and girls never do go around-”

“No need to argue, dear boy. It’s a waste of precious time.” Mr. Wonka interrupted Mike. “Follow me!”

Mr. Wonka brought the party over to the biggest machine they ever did see in stark comparison to rest of the machinery in this room. It stood in the very centre of the Inventing Room; a mountain of gleaming, futuristic metal that shines brightly and towered over the flabbergasted children. There were thousands of glass tubes curling downward from the top and came together and hung suspended over an enormous tub.

“Check this out!” cried Mr. Wonka as he punched some buttons and pulled a lever. The whole machine let out a mighty rumble and shook vigorously with steam hissing out all over. The children all watched as the colorful liquid ran through the glass tubes and squirting into the tub below in a shower of rainbows and sparkly gooey fluids like an ice-cream soda. The mixture began to froth and bubble, changing from one color to another. From blue to white to green to pink and back to blue. Then it all stopped suddenly with a slight click and a loud sucking noise. The blue frothy mixture in the huge basin was siphoned back into the belly of the machine. Apart from the occasional rumblings the machine produced, there was silence. But then the machine let out a loud growl and tiny glass drawer popped out of the side of machine and everything was dead silent once again. Mr. Wonka reached in the drawer and pulled out a small, thin and pale blue strip. The children looked on with bewilderment.

“You mean that’s all?” asked Mike, a little disgusted that a huge machine like that worked on a huge mixture just to make something that small.

“That’s all.” nodded Mr. Wonka, smiling proudly as the result of his invention’s work. “Don’t you know what it is?”

“By gum, it’s gum!” shrieked Violet, being the gum-chewer that she is.

“Correct!” Mr. Wonka cheered. “It’s a stick of the most amazing, fabulous and sensational gum in the world! This gum is my latest, greatest and most fascinating invention! It will be the end of all kitchens and all cooking. There will be no more grocery shopping either. No plates, no washing up, none of that! Just a little strip of Wonka’s magic chewing-gum and that’s all you’ll ever need at breakfast, lunch and dinner. This piece of gum happens to be tomato soup, roast beef and blueberry pie, but you can have almost everything you want.”

“What do you mean tomato soup, roast beef and blueberry pie?” asked Charlie curiously.

“Once you start chewing, it’s exactly what you get on the menu. You can actually feel the food going down your throat as if you were actually eating said food. Just like the real thing.”

“It sounds impossible.” said Veruca doubtfully.

“Just so long as it’s gum, I can chew it and that’s for me!” shouted Violet willingly as she popped her world-record gum out of her mouth and stuck it behind her ear. “Come on, Mr. Wonka! Let’s see that magic gum of yours! Let’s see if it really works.”

“Now, young lady, I wouldn’t do anything stupid if I were you.” warned Mr. Wonka sternly, but in that same tone of voice he used when warning Augustus not to drink from the river with his bare hands.

“It’s just gum.” Violet argued.

“I know, but I’d rather you didn’t.” Mr. Wonka said calmly; though holding the gum out temptingly to whoever would take it and that most assuredly would be Violet Beauregarde. “I haven’t gotten it quite right yet. There’s still a few more tests I need to run.”

“I don’t care!” Violet griped, snatching the gum from his fingers.

“Ah, I won’t do that, dear child.” warned Mr. Wonka stoically, just standing there, not trying to take the gum back.

“Pfft.” scoffed the athlete girl as she practically threw the gum in between her teeth and started chewing away at it, working her well-trained jaws while Mr. Wonka just watched with a small, strange smile.

“How is it?” asked Charlie. “What’s it like?”

“It’s fabulous!” Violet shouted with a delighted smile as she chewed. “Tomato soup! Hot, creamy and delicious! I can feel it running down my throat!”

“Oh, please, stop. It’s not ready.” Mr. Wonka said sarcastically while mentally enjoying the show.

“It’s working beautifully!” She announced. “I’ve never tasted a better soup! Ooh, it’s changing! The second course! Roast beef! Tender and juicy! And that baked potato is marvellous, too! Crispy skin with butter inside! I’m gonna be the first person alive to have a chewing-gum meal!”

“Uh, Violet, I think you should-” Charlie tried to reason with her, but the girl kept chewing and ignoring everyone.

“Blueberry pie and ice cream!” shouted Violet. “Here it comes! Oh my, it’s perfect! It’s delicious! It’s like I’m swallowing spoonfuls of blueberry pie!”

“What’s happening to your nose?” asked Veruca.

Everyone looked upon her as she chewed away on the extraordinary gum and gave her odd looks. Unknown to her, like Veruca mentioned, Violet’s nose was starting to grow a patch of blue that was slowly expanding.

“It’s turning blue!” Mike exclaimed.

“You’re nose is turning blue as a blueberry.” Charlie told her with shock.

“You’re whole nose has gone purple.” said Veruca.

“What do you mean?” asked Violet as the increasing blue pigmentation was spreading around her face.

“Violet, you’re turning Violet!” Charlie shrieked. “It’s going all over your face! What’s going on?”

“I told you I haven’t got it quite right.” Mr. Wonka said emotionless. “It always goes wrong when it gets to the dessert. It’s the blueberry pie that does it.”

The children gawked at Violet as it was now getting worse. Her face, her hands, her legs, her neck and entire skin was turning a deep, purplish-blue color of blueberry juice. Even her black hair was developing a dark shade of purple, almost nearly blending in with the purple highlights of her bangs. Then she felt a weird gurgling in her belly and noticed that her body was now swelling up and starting to expand like a balloon.

“She’s swelling up like a blueberry!” Veruca cried.

“Call a doctor!” shouted Charlie.

“Prick her with a pin!” Mike screamed.

She felt a heavy weight behind her and looked to see that her butt was growing and getting fatter along with her body. She was growing frightened for her own delicate and marvelous figure that her beloved mother always said she had. There was no saving her now. In seconds time, she kept swelling and growing until she was nothing but a giant blue ball. A gigantic blueberry to be exact. All that remained of Violet Beauregarde was a tiny pair of hands and feet and a tiny head at the top of the enormous fruit.

“I’ve tried it 20 times in the Testing Room and every Oompa-Loompa ended up as a blueberry. I just get it.” said Mr. Wonka.

“I don’t think Mrs. Beauregarde is gonna enjoy having a blueberry as a daughter.” Charlie told him.

“Well, don’t worry. We’ll just roll her into the boat and take her along to the Juicing Room at once.” Mr. Wonka said, gesturing for an Oompa-Loompa to do the task.

“The Juicing Room?” asked Mike. “What are they gonna do to her there?”

“Squeeze her.” answered Mr. Wonka. “You see, she’s currently filling up so much blueberry juice and they got to squeeze it all out of her immediately.”

Just then, some ‘70’s disco/pop rock-type music began to play and the Oompa-Loompas gathered around the giant blueberry that is now a shadow of Violet’s former self. And just like before, they broke into song like they did with Augustus after he disobeyed Mr. Wonka.

 _Dear friends, we surely all agree_  
_There’s almost nothing worse to see_  
_Than some repulsive little bum_  
_Who’s always chewing chewing-gum_

 _So all of you listen hard_  
_About girl named Violet Beauregarde_  
_This dreaded girl who sees no wrong_  
_In chewing, chewing, chewing all day long!_  
_Chewing, chewing in the tub_  
_Chewing, chewing at her club_  
_Chewing, chewing on the bus!_  
_Yeah!_

 _She went on chewing ‘till, at last_  
_Her chewing muscles grew so vast_  
_That from her face to her giant chin_  
_Sticks out just like a violin_

 _For years and years she chewed away_  
_Consuming fifty bits a day_  
_Until one summer’s eve, alas_  
_A horrid business came to pass_  
_That is why we try so hard_  
_To save Miss Violet Beauregarde_  
_From suffering an equal fate_  
_She’s still quite young. It’s not too late._

 _Chewing, chewing in the tub_  
_Chewing, chewing at her club_  
_Chewing, chewing, chewing_  
_Chewing, chewing, chewing_  
_All day long!_

After their song, the Oompa-Loompas rolled the blown-up Violet towards the boat like a giant ball that she is currently. She hoped that this wouldn’t ruin her reputation back at home, leaving Mr. Wonka with only three children left.

“Well, well, well, two naughty little children gone. Three good little children left.” said Mr. Wonka.

“Mr. Wonka, will Violet always be a blueberry?” asked Charlie.

“They’ll have her de-juiced in no time!” Mr. Wonka replied. “She’ll be out thin as a whistle.”

“But will she still be blue?” asked Mike.

“In the richest color of purple and blue from head to toe all over.” Mr. Wonka cried. “But that’s just what you get for chewing disgusting gum all day.”

“If you think gum is disgusting, why do you make it?” asked Mike.

“You shouldn’t mumble, dear boy. It’s impossible to hear you speak. Now off we go!” Mr. Wonka proceeded with the tour. The remaining children; Charlie, Veruca and Mike, followed him to the next room. Charlie hoped in his head that next room won’t be as tempting for the next child. But he surely hopped that Violet wouldn’t explode into piece before they squeeze all that juice out of her body.


	10. The Nut Sorting Room

Violet was rolled towards the Juicing Room like the ball that she was now. She spat the gum out earlier, but that didn’t save her from swelling up any bigger. She thought about her years of winning contests and races and receiving all those trophies. And here she was. A giant, balloon-like blueberry version of herself with a giant round belly and the biggest derriere ever. Violet’s mother once said her butt would grow soon enough and it did indeed grow in the worst way possible. The Oompa-Loompas hooked her up to some type of machine where they tied velcro belt around her large plump waist and wrists before sticking syringes connected to rubber tubes in various sections of her body. Violet winced as she was not fond of being stuck with needles, but if they were going to fix her, she would have to be strong. A Beauregarde never shows fear or weakness and that was fact. They put syringes on her belly, her shoulders, everywhere there was a vein present. Including her butt, making her gasp.

“Hey, watch your hands down there!” She shouted in anger.

They never responded and one of them signaled the other who worked the controls to do the rest. With an understood nod, the Oompa-Loompa pushed in the numbers and the machine whirred and hummed in response. Violet felt the constricting grip that was increasing on the velcro belts and the syringes sucking up the blueberry juice from her body and bloodstream. As she began to feel fatigue from the decrease of blood, she noticed that she was also shrinking. Her giant, blueberry-shaped body was unswelling and slowly returning to his original shape. The more blueberry juice that was extracted from her body, the more it shrank. At last, she was back to her regular self again. Violet chuckled with relief as she can finally move her limbs, but noticed something different about her figure. It wasn’t as petite and slender as it used to be. Feeling around herself, she found that the result of being made a blueberry has reduced her form into a slightly voluptuous and curvaceous hourglass figure complete with wide hips, thighs and a round rear. Violet blushed with embarrassment from this new change and wondered how her mother would react to it. How everyone would react to seeing a girl her age has developed early. But she also realised that her skin was still blue, but now a lighter shade of blue.

She looked like an alien, she thought with horror. How on earth is she ever going to life like this? But then suddenly, she felt a wave of nausea overwhelm her and she convulsed and gagged before she regurgitated a mess of wet, purple slime. It shot out of her mouth in a projectile manner and all over the floor.

She wheezed and coughed after that. She never felt this sick before. Must’ve been all that juice as it expanded her. But then suddenly, the purple slime she barfed up started to bubble furiously, catching Violet off guard. The Oompa-Loompas all backed away and just watched noiselessly as the puddle of slime bubbled some more and got bigger. Violet watched it with a surprised expression as it suddenly did something outside of slime normally did. It started to thicken and grow a giant, shapeless, deformed, translucent and hideous body of purple-colored goo with visible veins grew even bigger, dwarfing poor Violet as it did, making her sweat with fear and shock. Soon, the enormous purple mass grow arms that dripped extra juice and slime onto the floor and a face with a pair of salmon-pupiled eyes and a large, gaping maw. Standing before Violet was a giant blueberry blob monster that eyed her with a predatory gaze and opened it’s cavernous mouth with a belching roar, drooling more of that juice.

Violet instinctively began to get up and ran around the room with the blob chasing after her. Everytime it waved it’s arms about, trying to grab her, it flung pieces of slime everywhere. Violet flung her hands around as well, grabbing random objects to throw at the bulbous slime creature trying to eat her, but they all got stuck to its gooey body. It suddenly grabbed her with it’s gooey hand and lifted her off the ground with a hungry look. She wiggled and struggled, trying to wrestle herself out of it’s clutches, but for a creature made of slime, it had a strong, tight grip. As it brought her closer to it’s open mouth, Violet held held her breath and suddenly blew up into a blueberry again in seconds, knocking the blob away before the quickly deflated back to normal.

She checked her skin and pulled on it from her forearm. It stretched really far like a rubber band and it snapped back in place when she let go. It didn’t hurt at all. That experience had also given her abnormal flexibility and elasticity. Violet evaded the creature and hid underneath a machine. She panted and sweated from the fear of being eaten alive by a blueberry blob made of the juice that was inside of her. She silenced her breathing, hoping on to give away her position while looking around, but didn’t see the blob anywhere. At first, she believed that she gave it the slip, but froze when purple slime dripped onto the ground in front of her. Petrified and afraid of what she might find, she slowly poked her head out and looked up to see it standing on top of the machine, looking down at her. Violet screamed and hid back under, only for the monster to try and grab her from underneath. She crawled fast, narrowly avoiding the blob’s hands as they reached under. But then the blob accidently got caught in the contraption. Violet crawled out to notice and found a red button before pressing it, activating the machine. It was some kind of mincing and tenderizing machine by the looks of it and it pulled the blob into the mincing blades, severing it and reducing it back to a normal puddle of slime. Violet sighed with relief, glad that it’s over. But the Oompa-Loompas approached her with glaring faces full of fury and she backed away from them nervously.

She then discovered, to her horror, that the nightmare wasn’t over as the slime started to bubble again and she knew the blob wasn’t dead yet. She needed to get out of the Juicing Room before it reformed and she darted across the room and finally found the exit door and ran as fast as she could to find a place to hide.

* * *

Mr. Wonka brought the three children out of the Inventing Room through a secret door that only he knew was there. They were now going through a long pink corridor that had other pink corridors leading out of it. Charlie felt nervous and hoped her wouldn’t get separated from the group. It looked easy to get lost in a place like this. They passed by door after door leading to a specific new room with delicious smells wafting through the keyholes and sometimes steam poured out of the cracks of the door.

“Without the boat, we’ll have to keep up on foot. There’s still far too much to see.” Mr. Wonka explained.

Everyone came through a room that contained the lickable wallpapers for nurseries. On the wallpapers were pictures of fruits and the like.

“Oh, yes! Lovely stuff. Lickable wallpapers for nurseries.” Mr. Wonka told them. “Pictures of fruits on them. Bananas, apples, oranges, pineapples, strawberries, everything.”

“Wow!” Mike exclaimed with wonder.

“Damn right ‘wow’!” replied Mr. Wonka. “Lick the wallpaper. Lick a banana, it tastes like a banana. Lick a strawberry, it tastes like strawberries. Go ahead, try it.”

The three children all pressed their faces against the wall and licked the many fruit pictures on the wallpaper and they actually tasted like the real thing. Like they were licking actual fruits.

“Mmm, I got a watermelon!” Charlie hummed with joy, licking the watermelon picture.

“I got a grape!” announced Mike.

“Didn’t I tell you?” asked Mr. Wonka proudly. “Keep licking! The pineapples taste like pineapples. The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!”

“Snozzberries?” asked Veruca. “What kind of fruit is a snozzberry?”

Mr. Wonka suddenly grabbed one of her braids and gently turned her head towards him, forcefully bringing her face to face to him as he eyed her with a stern, but visibly irritable expression.

“We make the music, little girl. And we provide the entertainment.” He softly informed her with a dangerous tone before releasing her braid. “On we go!”

The trio of children followed after Mr. Wonka, going through many more rooms to pass the time, showing them many of his ingenious candy inventions and ideas in each room. There was the ‘ **HOT ICE CREAM FOR COLD DAYS** ’ room, the ‘ **CHOCOLATE MILK COWS** ’ room, the ‘ **EATABLE MARSHMALLOW ROOM** ’ room, the ‘ **LUMINOUS LOLLIES FOR IN BED AT NIGHT** ’ room, the ‘ **CONSTELLATION CANDY AND PIE BED** ’ room and the ' **INVISIBLE CHOCOLATE BARS FOR EATING IN CLASS** ’ room. In the last room, Mr. Wonka was approached by a female Oompa-Loompa who whispered to him that he needed to hear something.

“Oh. Children, there’s something I need to attend to real quick. So you all enjoy yourselves, but don’t go wandering off or causing mischief while I’m gone. I’ll be back in just a second.” Mr. Wonka told the trio before he followed the Oompa-Loompa girl and the two walked further away from the children until they were out of earshot. Charlie took the time to tell the other two about his concerns. He lead them both into a closet to speak with them privately.

“I seriously think that Mr. Wonka is up to something.” He told them.

“Well, that’s pretty obvious.” Mike remarked.

“What are you talking about?” demanded Veruca.

“I’m talking about what’s been going on.” explained Charlie in a soft tone so nobody can hear them. “I think Mr. Wonka wants each of us to get eliminated.”

“What are you on about, peasant?” Veruca asked.

“Mr. Wonka probably has something weird planned for each of us. I mean, think about it. He just stood there and did nothing when Augustus fell into the river or when Violet chewed that faulty three-course gum meal. It’s like he was tempting us to disobey him or something.”

“Are you saying Mr. Wonka is gonna have us turned into candy or some shit?” asked Mike.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But whatever the reason, it doesn’t sound pretty.” Charlie said.

“Oh, please.” Veruca rolled her eyes. “You’re just jealous, because you’re afraid that I’m going to win this and you’re just making all that up to trick me into forfeiting so you can have the special prize instead of me! Well, I’m too smart for any poor tramp like yourself. I’m not gonna waste my precious time listening to such nonsense!”

With that, Veruca barged out of the closet away from the other two, refusing to listen to the whims and unlikely malarky of anyone below her status. As Charlie and Mike followed her to try and talk some sense into her, Mr. Wonka arrived with a smile.

“Oh, there you three are!” He chirped. “You weren’t trying to hide from me, were you?”

“Uh, no, sir.” Charlie lied, shaking his head. “We were just checking the place out and the closet.”

“Well, I promise you won’t find anything interesting in there. Now then, come along.” Mr. Wonka said as he brought the remaining party with an eager Veruca tailing behind him with the boys hesitantly following them.

“I kind of agree with you in general, but what really makes you think that _the_ Willy Wonka wants something bad to happen to us?” Mike asked.

“I’m not sure, but it’s just a theory.” Charlie responded.

Mr. Wonka brought them into a wide room filled with bubbles floating about and if you looked above, you could see a fan that tremendously high above the ground. The door to the room read ‘ **FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS** ’.

“Ah, these are fabulous!” Mr. Wonka said happily. “Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere, but not a stop to drink. Not yet. Now this is a special invention I call Fizzy Lifting Drinks. They’re like sodas, except they fill you with gas and this special kind of gas is so terribly lifting that it lifts you right off the ground like a balloon.”

“Wow, that fan is really high.” Veruca commented with a gasp, looking up to the fan on the ceiling.

“Yep. It helps provide ventilation should the gas stay in place once released.” Mr. Wonka said. “Because if you want to get down, you have to let out a big burp to give the gas an excuse to leave your system. An Oompa-Loompa tried some and he went up and up and up until he disappeared. He should’ve burped, but he didn’t. I kept telling him, “Burp, you silly ass! Burp before it’s too late!”. But he was already gone before my message got through. He’s probably on the moon by now.”

Mr. Wonka left the room and the children went with him down the corridor to another door to a new room that said ‘ **THE NUT SORTING ROOM** ’.

“Alrighty then.” He said, stopping them so he can open the door. “We’ll stop here for a moment to catch our breath and take a peek through the glass panel and have a gander on what ruckus lies inside. But don’t go inside or else you’ll disturb the workers.”

Upon opening the door, everyone stepped inside to a large glass window to show them an amazing, yet unusual sight. One hundred squirrels sitting on high stools around tables forming a circle around a large hole in the floor. At each table, the squirrels worked like made, shelling walnuts at a fast pace. Veruca grinned wickedly on the sight. It nearly reminded her of her father’s nut shelling factory, but all the workers were humans.

“Squirrels!” She shouted with a greedy smile.

“That’s right.” Mr. Wonka nodded. “These squirrels are specially trained for getting nuts out of walnut shells.”

“But why use squirrels? Why not use Oompa-Loompas?” asked Mike.

“Because nobody except squirrels can get the whole walnut out of the shells every time.” The chocolatier explained. “It’s really difficult for an Oompa-Loompa to do the job, especially humans. They’ll just break them in half or in pieces. Oh, look! Right there! I think that one’s a bad nut.”

He showed them one particular squirrel tapping a walnut shell with his knuckles. It didn’t break, but it made a hollow sound. The squirrel pressed his ear to the nut, listening intently, before tossing it over his shoulder and into the hole in the floor.

“Mr. Wonka!” cried Veruca suddenly. “I’ve decided I want one of those squirrels. Give me one of those squirrels! I want one!”

“Don’t you have many pets already?” asked Mr. Wonka.

“All I’ve got at home is two dogs and four cats and six bunny rabbits and two parakeets and three canaries, a green parrot, a turtle, a goldfish in a bowl, a cage of white mice and a silly old hamster! I want a squirrel!” screamed Veruca impatiently.

“I’m sorry, Miss Salt, but they’re not for sale. You can’t have one.” Mr. Wonka refused. “I kinda need those squirrels, actually.”

Veruca’s face turned scarlet with burning fury and she glared venomously at the famous candyman for blatantly turning down her request, making Charlie and Mike back away a step, sensing an upcoming meltdown.

“How dare you! How dare you!” Veruca screamed, stomping her foot childishly, throwing one of her infamous huge temper tantrums, ranting and raving. “I’m Veruca Salt! The richest girl in all of England! My daddy gets me anything I want! You have no right to say “no” to me! Nobody says “no” to me! Well, fine! If you won’t give me a squirrel, I’ll get one myself!”

With that said, the spoiled girl marched her way over to the door, but like before, Mr. Wonka stood by and made no attempt to try and stop her.

“Little girl, don’t go in there.” He said calmly with no emotion. “They won’t like that.”

But the ungrateful rich brat ignored him and went through the door anyway and shut it behind her, stepping down a flight of stairs. Every squirrel in the room immediately stopped what they were doing as they all turned to face Veruca with their big, black, beady eyes. Veruca stared back and looked around for what to choose from. Her eyes fell upon the squirrel closest to her and she trotted over, disregarding the knocks Mike made to get her attention. All she had in might was to grab a squirrel and leave. She stood before the one she picked, which stared at her with the walnut in his paws.

“I’ll have you.” She said with a wide grin as she reached her hands out to grab him. But then suddenly, Mr. Wonka’s eyes glowed a bright yellow, which didn’t go unnoticed by Charlie, and at the same moment, the squirrel sprang from his stool away from the bratty girl’s hands before she could reach him. Every other squirrel leaped from their own respective stools, going full-on ballistic as they all attacked Veruca in a frenzy. Veruca screamed and panicked, trying to fight them off her, but were already on her, crawling all over her body, making her fall on her back to the floor.

They started pinning her down so she wouldn’t get away. They pinned down her arms and her legs, keeping her in place. One remaining squirrel, the same squirrel that she tried to kidnap, climbed on her head and started tapping on her forehead with his knuckles. She struggled hard, but she couldn’t free herself from this army of woodland rodents.

“What are they doing to her?” asked Charlie.

“They’re testing her to see if she’s a bad nut.” explained Mr. Wonka.

Then all at once, the squirrels grabbed her body and dragged Veruca across the floor and towards the hole. She tried to stop them by grabbing onto something on the floor, but there was nothing to grab onto and these squirrels were strong when in a group.

“Oh my goodness, she is a bad nut after all.” Mr. Wonka said with a smirk and watched the tiny rodents carry the kicking and screaming girl closer to the hole. She tried to fight, but it was no use.

“Where are they taking her?” Mike asked.

“Where all the other bad nuts go. Down to the garbage chute.” answered Mr. Wonka.

“But where does that chute go?” asked Charlie with worry.

“To the incinerator.” Mr. Wonka said without a ounce of fear in his own voice. Both boys looked at him with fright. “But don’t worry, there might be a good chance they won’t light it today.”

The rest watched as the squirrels were at the edge of the hole and they shoved Veruca forward, letting her slide in and plummet right down into the descending darkness below; her screams echoing as she fell straight into the hole towards the garbage chute and disappeared. Charlie and Mike winced as her screams faded into nothing when the squirrels all returned to their stools to resume their work in shelling walnuts.

“Oh my. What’s gonna become of her now?” asked Charlie.

“I expect someone will be down there to catch her when she reaches the bottom of the chute.” said Mr. Wonka trying to settle their nerves. “But they only light the incinerator every other days and perhaps they won’t light it today. She might get lucky.”

Suddenly, Oompa-Loompas arrived from corridors around the room with a soft, jazz-type melody playing as they formed their own circle around the hole to sing their song.

 _Veruca Salt, the little brute_  
_Has just gone down the garbage chute_  
_And as we very rightly thought_  
_That in a case like this we ought_  
_To see the thing completely through,_  
_We’ve polished off her parents, too._

 _Down goes Veruca! Down she goes_  
_How she’ll get out, no one knows!_  
_Than she will meet, as she descends_  
_A rather different set of friends_  
_A rather different set of friends_  
_A rather different set of friends_

 _A fish head, for example, cut_  
_This morning from a halibut_  
_A bacon rind, some rancid lard,_  
_A loaf of bread gone stale and hard_  
_A steak that nobody could chew_  
_An oyster from an oyster stew_  
_Some liverwurst so old and grey_  
_One swelled it from a mile away_  
_And lots of other things as well,_  
_Each with a rather horrid smell_  
_Horrid smell_

 _These are Veruca’s newfound friends_  
_That she will meet as she descends_  
_And this is the price she has to pay_  
_For going so very far astray_

 _Who spoiled her, then? Ah, who indeed?_  
_Who pandered to her every need?_  
_Who turned her into such a brat?_  
_Who are the culprits? Who did that?_  
_They are and this is very sad_  
_Her loving parents, her mum and dad_

The Oompa-Loompas all dispersed and left the squirrels do their work, hopefully in peace this time. Mr. Wonka let out a small, inside giggle, feeling a little glad that the rotten girl had fallen down the garbage chute where she’ll be with all the rest of the rotten rubbish.

“Well, now. On with the tour, boys.” Mr. Wonka said heading for the door.

“Looks like it’s just you and me now, Mike.” Charlie reminded his last competitor left.

“Well, she was annoying anyway.” shrugged Mike before the two followed Mr. Wonka to whatever room was next.


	11. The Television Room

Veruca screamed with terror as the hole she was dropped in seemed to go on for hours and before she knew it, she landed headfirst into the biggest mess of garbage imaginable. A giant literal mountain of rotten, smelling trash and gross unneeded items and spoiled foods and most especially, all of the bad nuts that the squirrels disposed of. Fish bones, candy wrappers, potatoes, soiled and stale food items like steak and egg shells, empty cans, the list goes on. Veruca regained her sense, but was immediately engulfed the most foul odor of all that would make skunks smell like a imperfect mixture for perfume. She coughed and gagged from that god-awful stench. It stung her eyes and burned her nose hairs. She tried to cover her nose and mouth with her dress, but it was just everywhere.

She tried to stand up, but slipped and and ended up sliding down the trash mountain and into even more trash. Veruca squirmed around, flinging the disgusting rubbish off of her. The smell was only the beginning act. The worst part was how she looked now. She was covered in gross residue and muck from the trash and looked like a mess. Her mink stole coat, her beautiful clothes, her perfect braided hair and her makeup. Ruined! She wanted to scream in humiliation so badly. Veruca made a mental note to get even with Mr. Wonka somehow for getting her into this mess. Quite literally.

But then the sound of munching caught her attention and it came from and adjacent section of the room she just fell into. Practically swimming herself over to the side of the dumpster, she looked to see a heap of trash on the floor, to no surprise at all. But there was a trail of trash that lead away from the dumpster where she stood. Veruca wondered if this will lead her to an exit or something. But then she noticed that the garbage in the dumpster was being thrown into the incinerator. Oompa-Loompas using large shovels to throw the waste into a burning inferno, forcing Veruca to make a decision to either stay and be burnt alive or find a way out. Choosing logically to leave this infernal factory in one piece, she climbed over the side, careful not to arouse the Oompa-Loompas’ suspicion and dropped about a meter to the ground. She slowly followed the garbage trail, unaware of where it was leading her.

It stood about 30 feet tall with big, buggy eyes, antennas, three sets of arms, all of the sharp pinchers and tiny pairs of scary claws. It gave the impression of a giant praying mantis and something of a prawn. It was currently feeding of the trash from a bag it collected from the garbage and munching away with it’s ugly mouth. Veruca stopped herself dead short when the munching got louder, followed by a series of inhuman gurgles. She knew at that minute that this didn’t sound like good news. She hid herself when the insect creature stopped eating it indigestible snack when it smelled something foul. It followed the scent when Veruca decided to brave herself enough to see what was behind the fuel tank she was hiding behind. There was nothing but a ripped-open bag of trash sitting there in the middle of the floor. Although confused, she figured that whatever she heard was probably gone now.

But when she turned around, she was proven dead wrong. It was standing right there facing her and staring back at her with it’s huge, arthropod eyes and emitting chirping sounds. That was enough to get Veruca screaming bloody murder and running for her life away from the giant insect beast with it chasing after her. Veruca broke through the double-doors to enter a corridor. She slammed them shut and ran down the hallway to find a place to hide. She stuck with one room away from the Garbage Room and rushed inside. The bug monster smashed through the double doors, knocking them off their hinges and looked around for it’s soon-to-be hors d'oeuvre.

It followed the stinky odor towards the room Veruca was now in. She found a table to hid under covered with a white cloth. She held her breath and choked on her saliva, sweating with fear and she felt like this was all her fault. In fact, she felt like everything was her fault. Forcing her parents to fulfill her every desire by whining, kicking and screaming and blackmailing them. Letting all the wealth and idea of receiving wonderful gifts get to her head. And now she was about to be eaten by giant insect. A fate worse than being toasted with a mess of rubbish. The bug creature entered the room, smelling the scent and following the trail Veruca left behind toward the table. Veruca noticed shards of glass on the floor along with air freshener and a lighter. On the label of the air freshener, it said it was flammable, which is uncommon for scented sprays. This was giving her an idea.

The insect monster edged dangerously closer to the table and figure the girl must be under it. So using it’s large-sized pincher claws, it threw the table off the floor to reveal only a stained and ruined mink stole coat. Chirping with confusion, but satisfied nonetheless, it started to chew on the furry garb. But what it didn’t notice is that Veruca had removed her coat and sacrificed it to the beast before sneaking away to a balcony above the ground that was level with the monster. She held the air freshener and the shard of glass. She tapped on the metal railing to get the beast to look at her. When it did, it realized too late that she was now armed. Veruca let out a determined scream as she drove the shard deep into the monster’s eyes, making it wail and screech in agony as it tried and failed to remove it.

With it distracted, Veruca pulled the lighter out and lit it before holding the tiny blue flame over the air freshener before spraying it contents into fire, creating a jet of flames onto the monster, burning it’s body and making it wail some more and writhe in pain. Veruca then darted for the door and ran down the corridor as the fire sprinklers activated, putting out the creature’s flames.

* * *

With only two children left, Mr. Wonka knew they needed one way to get around the factory quicker in no time. He brought them down the corridor and pressed a button, which made a ‘ding’ and opened up an elevator made entirely out of glass.

“This is the most effective and quickest way to get around the factory.” explained Mr. Wonka as he and two boys stepped inside.

Charlie and Mike looked around the transparent glass elevator with astonishment. It was the strangest elevator they’ve ever been on. There were buttons everywhere for every room in the factory. There were buttons on the walls and even the ceilings, which would be impossible for them to reach, given their size. There must be thousands of rooms in this factory, Charlie thought. It certainly was the biggest factory of all factories in the world. Each button had a label to remind which room they take you to.

“That’s a lot of floors.” Mike remarked with amazement.

“It certainly is.” nodded Mr. Wonka. “Now this isn’t an ordinary up-and-down elevator, mind you. This elevator can go sideways, longways, slantways and any other ways you can think of! It can visit every single room in the whole factory, no matter where it is. You just simply press a button and _zing!_ You’re off!”

Charlie tapped the elevator doors and said, “It’s all hard glass.”

“Exactly!” Mr. Wonka cried. “That way you can see where you’re going on this elevator.”

“But aren’t you afraid it might, you know, shatter on you at one point?” asked Charlie with concern.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! This is the hardest material of glass no carpenter will ever find. Virtually indestructible. Why don’t you boy pick a room? Any room.” suggested Mr. Wonka.

The two boys quickly started to search each button to find decide which room to go into next. There were countless buttons here and so many to choose from.

**THE ROCK-CANDY MINE - 10,000 FEET DEEP**

**COKERNUT-ICE SKATING RINKS**

**STRAWBERRY-JUICE WATER PISTOLS**

**TOFFEE-APPLE TREES FOR PLANTING OUT IN YOUR GARDEN - ALL SIZES**

**EXPLODING SWEETS FOR YOUR ENEMIES**

**MINT JUJUBES FOR THE BOY NEXT DOOR - THEY’LL GIVE HIM GREEN TEETH FOR A MONTH.**

**CAVITY-FILLING CARAMELS - NO MORE DENTISTS**

**STICKJAW FOR TALKATIVE PARENTS**

**WRIGGLE-SWEETS THAT WRIGGLE DELIGHTFULLY IN YOUR TUMMY AFTER SWALLOWING**

**INVISIBLE CHOCOLATE BARS FOR EATING IN CLASS**

**SUGAR-COATED PENCILS FOR SUCKING**

**FIZZY LEMONADE SWIMMING POOLS**

**MAGIC HAND-FUDGE - WHEN YOU HOLD IT IN YOUR HAND, YOU TASTE IN YOUR MOUTH**

**RAINBOW DROPS - SUCK THEM AND YOU CAN SPIT IN SIX DIFFERENT FLAVORS**

“Wow, there’s so many buttons here. I don’t even know where to start.” Charlie gasped as he looked around.

“Is there a Television Room in this lot?” asked Mike, being the TV lover that he is.

“Certainly there’s a television room. Here, let me check.” Mr. Wonka said as he pressed a random button and the elevator abruptly took off to the right in high speed, faster than a bullet, knocking Mike and Charlie into the wall of the elevator on the left side. Mr. Wonka stayed perfectly still, despite the speed and kept his finger on the button, which left the rest of the buttons unresponsive, the boys don’t accidentally press them with their bodies.

“Now let’s see. I think it was this one.” Mr. Wonka said with a mock thinking voice, feigning confusion as he pressed another button, that rocketed the elevator into a different direction, bringing the boys into the doors as the elevator sped up at an incredible pace that would beat the boat in a race to the finish line. They were passing many rooms as they travelled. An enormous spout with sticky, chocolate stuff oozing out of it on the floor like a geyser, a great mountain made of fudge with Oompa-Loompas in mountain-climbing equipment and roped together for safety hacking at huge chunks of fudge, a machine with white powder spraying out of it like a snowstorm, a lake of hot, steaming caramel, an Oompa-Loompa village with tiny houses and streets with Oompa-Loompa children playing in it and more. Mr. Wonka kept pushing random buttons, pretending not to remember where the exact room was. The boy were being tossed around the elevator like rag dolls at every sharp turn as it twisted and went up and down in different directions.

“Uh, no, no. That’s not right.” muttered Mr. Wonka, pressing another button, bringing the elevator to a sudden halt, knocking the poor boys to the floor, leaving them groaning in pain.

“Oh, yes! Now I remember! It’s this one!” Mr. Wonka’s eyes widened with false realisation as he pressed a button that said ‘ **TELEVISION CHOCOLATE** ’. The elevator made a sharp drop, causing the boys to fly face-first into the ceiling. The elevator plummeted fast before stopping once more, sending them falling to the floor. With a ‘ding’, the elevator doors slid open.

“Here we are. Mind the gap.” joked Mr. Wonka as he stepped off the elevator first while the two boys groaned and struggled to stand up, feeling painful aches from being thrown around the walls a lot.

“Some ride.” grunted Mike, rubbing his hip.

“I don’t think I’m ever getting on that thing again.” Charlie rubbed his sore head as they both followed Mr. Wonka into a room that was so dazzlingly bright and white that nearly hurt their eyes, making them cover them.

“Here! Put these on quick and don’t take them off whatever you do!” Mr. Wonka said handing them two pairs of dark goggles before putting some on himself. “This light is so powerful that it could blind you in seconds.”

With the dark goggles on, Charlie looked all over the room, now able to see clearly. The room was completely white and spotlessly clean. Not a speck of dust anywhere. Hanging from the ceiling were lamps that bathed the room in a brilliant blue-white light. The room was absolutely bare, safe for the large camera-like machine pointing at a platform, a console of controls and switches and big plasma-screen TV. The Oompa-Loompas were all dressed in pearly-white astronaut suits and wearing their own pairs of dark glasses while they polished and wiped the camera’s lens in complete silence. About fifty paces away from the large camera, one Oompa-Loompa was watching the news on the plasma-screen television set.

“This is the testing room for my very latest and greatest invention: Television Chocolate.” Mr. Wonka explained. “It works by television, you see. I shall tell you how this amazing television of my mine works. But do you know how ordinary television works?”

“I do!” Mike cried.

“It’s very simple.” Mr. Wonka said, ignoring the boy. “On one end, the picture is being taken where you have a cine camera and you start photographing something. The photographs are then split up into millions of tiny, little pieces that are barely visible to a naked eye and they go whizzing into the heavens by electricity until they suddenly hit the antenna on the roof of your house. Then they go flashing down the cable into the back of the television set and they jostle around until every last piece is fitted into its right place like a jigsaw puzzle. Presto!”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, sir.” Mike protested.

“I’m a tad bit deaf in this ear, boy.” retorted Mr. Wonka, openly mocking the television junkie. “You’ll have to speak a little louder next time. Now the very first time I saw ordinary television working, it donned on me, ‘Say, if these people can break up a photograph into millions of pieces and send them whizzing through the air and put them on the other end, then why couldn’t I do the same with chocolate? Why can’t I, Mr. Willy Wonka and yours truly, send a real chocolate bar whizzing through the air in tiny pieces and put them together on the other end, all ready to be eaten?’”

“Sounds impossible.” Mike noted with disbelief.

“Impossible, you say?” parroted Mr. Wonka. “Just watch this! I shall now send a bar of chocolate from one end of this room and to other by television. Bring in the chocolate!”

Upon his command, the Oompa-Loompas carried the biggest Wonka Bar ever into the room and placed on the platform. It was about the size of the mattresses Charlie and his parents slept on back at home.

“It has to be big.” Mr. Wonka explained to his visitors. “Because whenever you send by television, it always comes out much smaller than it really is when it went in. Even with regular television, when you photograph a big man, he never comes out as any taller than his original size, does he? I must advise you both to stand clear of the camera when it goes off. It’ll break you up into million pieces in a mere second. Which is why the Oompa-Loompas are wearing space suits to protect them. Here we go!”

He pressed a button on the console and the Oompa-Loompa operating the big camera grabbed hold of a large switch and pulled it all the way down. Then was a blinding flash of white that filled the whole room briefly and when it died down, the giant chocolate bar had vanished into thin air.

“It’s gone!” shouted Charlie.

“That’s right.” smiled Mr. Wonka. “It’s on it’s way now, rushing through the air above our heads in a million tiny pieces. This way! Quickly!”

He rushed over to the large television set the Oompa-Loompa was watching and the two boys hurried along behind him.

“Watch the screen!” Mr. Wonka yelled. “Here it comes! Look!”

As the screen flickered and lit up, a small bar of chocolate appeared on the TV while it was playing the scene in the _The Shining_ where the camera was slowly approaching the black-and-white photo of Jack Torrance at a party couldn’t have been around for. The Oompa-Loompa paused the movie, letting the now-shrunken Wonka Bar sit there in the Overlook Hotel lobby. Charlie and Mike were both shocked by this.

“Take it.” Mr. Wonka told Mike.

“How can you take it?” The boy asked. “It’s just a picture on a screen.”

“Very well, then. You take it.” Mr. Wonka told Charlie instead. “Go on. Just reach right in and grab it.”

While hesitant, Charlie took a hand out and touched the screen. But, miraculously, his hand phased right through it as if there was nothing there. Both he and Mike gasped when this happened. Charlie actually had his hand inside of the movie. He felt the sign that said “The Gold Room” and it jiggled slightly from his tough. It felt real and perhaps the Wonka Bar was real, too. He grabbed it and pulled it out of the television set just like that.

“Eat it.” urged Mr. Wonka. “Go on and eat it. It’ll be delicious. It’s just gotten smaller on the journey, is all.”

Charlie unwrapped the chocolate bar and took a bite out of the chocolate.

“It is delicious.” He grinned.

“It’s a miracle.” Mike marveled with childlike wonderment.

“So just imagine when I start using this baby across the country.” Mr. Wonka began. “You’re sitting at home watching television and suddenly a commercial will come onto the screen saying, “Eat Wonka’s chocolates! They’re the best in the world! Don’t believe us? Try one for yourself now!” And you just reach a hand in and take one! How about that?”

“But Mr. Wonka, could you send other things through television? Like breakfast cereal?” asked Mike.  
“Oh, my sainted aunt!” complained Mr. Wonka. “Do you even know what breakfast cereal’s even made of? It’s those little curly wooden shavings you find in a pencil sharpener?”

“But could you send it by television if you wanted to? Like the chocolate?” asked Charlie.

“Of course I could.”

“What about people?” asked Mike.

“People?” repeated Mr. Wonka, pretending to be confused. “I don’t really know. I suppose I could. Yes, I’m pretty sure I could. Of course it could. I wouldn’t like to risk it, though. It might lead to some very grisly results.”

However, during the last sentence, Mike was already making a run for the platform in an eager attempt to get himself sent by television and Mr. Wonka was not surprised at all and, as Charlie suspected, he just stood by casually and let the TV-obsessed boy take off to stupidly get himself televised.

“Mike! Come back here! Stop!” Charlie screamed, but Mike disregarded him and pressed the button on the console as he ran for the platform. Charlie realized it was too late to save him now. The Oompa-Loompa activated the camera and in a blinding white flash, Mike was gone from sight. There was an uncomfortable silence now.

“He’s gone.” gasped Charlie.

“Let’s watch the television.” Mr. Wonka hurried back over to the television with Charlie. “He may come through in any moment.”

They both waited and started patiently at the screen. It flickered and fuzzed, but there was no sign of Mike anywhere. Mr. Wonka had the Oompa-Loompa change channels, but still there was nothing.

“Oh, dear. I do hope no part of him gets left behind.” worried Mr. Wonka mockingly.

“What do you mean?” asked Charlie.

“Well, sometimes only about half of the little pieces find their way through the transmission.” explained Mr. Wonka emotionlessly. “I tried it on a chocolate bar last week and only half of it made it to the other end. It’s never been tested on humans before, let alone Oompa-Loompas. I did say it would be risky.”

“Wait a minute!” Charlie cut him off and stared at the screen. Something was starting to come up and it turned into a small version of Mike no shorter than an inch. He materialised out of thin air on the television the same way the Wonka Bar did and he was having a look at his surroundings.

“There he is.” said Charlie with relief. “He’s gotten smaller!”

“What did I tell you, huh?” said Mr. Wonka with pride in his voice. “He’s completely unharmed.”

“You call that unharmed?” Charlie asked, gobsmacked.

“Look at me, Charlie!” shouted the tiny, squeaky and chipmunk-like voice coming from the shrunken Mike Teavee. “I’m the first person alive to be sent by television!”

“This cannot be good.” murmured Charlie.

Then some punk rock music began to play as the channels continue to switch, putting the pint-size Mike in different scenarios as the Oompa-Loompas started to sing along with the characters on the television on each channel.

 _The most important thing we’ve learned_  
_So far as children are concerned,_  
_Is never, never, never let_  
_Them near the television set_  
_Or better still, just don’t install_  
_The idiotic thing at all_

 _In almost every house we’ve been_  
_We’ve watched gaping at the screen_  
_They loll and slop and lounge about,_  
_And stare until they’re eyes pop out._  
_Never, never let them_  
_Never, never let them_

 _To wonder just exactly what_  
_This does to your beloved tot_  
_It rots the senses in the head!_  
_It kills imagination dead!_  
_It clogs and clutters up the mind!_  
_It makes a child so dull and blind!_

 _He can no longer understand_  
_A fantasy, a fairyland!_  
_His brain becomes as soft as cheese!_  
_His thinking powers rust and freeze!_  
_He cannot think, he only sees!_

 _So please, oh please, we beg, we pray_  
_Go throw away your TV set away_  
_And in its place you can install_  
_A lovely bookshelf on the wall_

 _Regarding little Mike Teavee_  
_We very much regret that we_  
_Shall simply have to wait and see_  
_If we can get back his height_  
_But if we can’t, it serves him right_

“Grab him.” Mr. Wonka ordered.

Charlie reached in and picked up the small Mike, pulling out of the television set as he observed how small he had gotten.

“How are you gonna fix me?” asked Mike in his high-pitched voice.

“He can’t stay like this, Mr. Wonka.” Charlie encouraged pleadingly.

“Well, I must say that’s a bit tricky to say the least.” Mr. Wonka said as he scratched his chin in thought. “But small boys are extremely springy and elastic. They stretch like mad. We’ll put him in a special machine I made for testing the stretchiness of chewing-gum and taffy.”

“You mean you’re going to stretch him out?” asked Charlie.

“Yes. But that’ll have to wait, I’m afraid to say. The machine broke last week and it’s still being repaired at this point. But I have word that it’ll be ready eventually today. So for the time being, we’ll just leave little Mike in the television until then, okay?”

“What?!” Mike shrieked.

“But Mr. Wonka, I-” Charlie tried to object and complain, but was interrupted.

“No arguments, please.” Mr. Wonka as he took Mike from Charlie and placed the boy back in the TV, turned a knob on it and pressed the power button, turning the television off, cutting off Mike’s exclaim of protest. Mr. Wonka put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder and walked with him toward the exit. “Now come along now, we still have much to see.”

The Oompa-Loompas in the room powered down the technology in the room with the machines emitting a soft, fading whir as they shut off and the blinding light in the room diminished, nearly darkening it. The decrease in bright light allowed it safe for everyone to remove their goggles now. Mr. Wonka and Charlie placed theirs back on the hangers where they got them before returning to the elevator.

“We must get a move on!” urged Mr. Wonka. “How many children are left?”

He was met with complete silence in response. The rest of the children had already been eliminated and excluded from the tour as a result of their disobedience. The only child left now was little Charlie Bucket.

“Mr. Wonka,” began Charlie. “I am the only one left now.”

“You are?” gasped Mr. Wonka, feigning surprise as if it wasn’t obvious.

“Yes.” Charlie smiled.

“Oh, my dear boy!” cheered Mr. Wonka, lit up with a wide grin before shaking Charlie’s hand rapidly out of sheer excitement. “That means you’ve won! Oh, I do congratulate you! I really do! I’m absolutely delighted! How wonderful this is! Well done, Charlie! Well done! Now the fun is really about to start! Now we mustn’t dilly nor dally! There’s less time to lose now that there was before! We still have a number of things to do before the day is out! But luckily, we have a great glass elevator to speed things up for us! Come along, Charlie. We must head for my office first to discuss matters. I call shotgun!”

As soon as they were inside the great glass elevator, Mr. Wonka presses the button and faster than a bullet, the elevator took off in lightning speed taking them were they needed to be.


	12. The Devastating Truth!

Stuck inside of that precious, mind-numbing and soul-crushing television technology he loved so much, Mike thought so much about the events that transpired prior to him foolishly and impulsively getting himself televised. He cared so much about television and anything related to television as a whole. It’s basically the only thing he’s ever known. He’s learned a lot from watching a screen every hour on the hour and yet, it’s not really the healthiest way to learn facts and logic. He’s pretty much wasted his life away just sitting around on the floor in front of the TV set, watching those dreaded shows and movies. Why couldn’t do something more active and productive like read a book or play hockey outside.

His train of thought made a sudden stop when he noticed that his surroundings had shifted on their own. No longer was he a shrunken boy standing on a newscaster’s counter in front of green screen, but now he was inside of a random bedroom big enough for him and he was under the covers of the bed and donning pajamas. Well, utilizing his movie skills and taking a gander of the room, he realized the familiarity of the bedroom he was currently in. A dark, low-pitched sinister cackle echoed all around, making Mike’s blood run cold. He noticed, to his horror, hands pushing in through the walls as if they were made of some kind of elastic fabric, accompanied by the collective tortured moans deep within and the one responsible of the evil laughter made its presence known by appearing as a shadow cutting across the walls, holding its clawed hand out dangerously close to Mike’s bed. It took a true horror fanatic to finally understand that he was inside _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ and Freddy Krueger was inching ever closer with his trademark claw glove, ready to end the poor boy’s life. Staring back was that burnt-skin face that would haunt anyone’s nightmares.

“Pleasant dreams, Mike.” The dark, bellowing voice of his remarked as he brought his claw down on him as Mike covered himself with the blankets in fear, waiting for his life to end with a suffocating pitch blackness. But it never came and he suddenly found himself falling down to the ground, the bed disappearing. The air was cold and the floor had become a moist land of grass. He sat up to see he was now in an old abandoned campground surrounded by a woodsy landscape in the middle of the dead of night. He was now wearing a camp uniform, covering in dirt and grime for some reason. But he got his answer in form of a shadowy figure whose only became more distinct as he inched closer into the moonlight to reveal a familiar hockey mask on his face and a bloody machete gripped tightly in his hands.

Mike gasped and when Jason Voorhees started for him, he screamed, rushed back to his feet and ran for his life. It was already evident that he was now in one of the _Friday the 13th_ films. Mike ran as fast as his legs could carry in desperate effort to escape the undead, machete-wielding pursuer. Finally, he ducked into one of the cabins and slammed the door behind him, locking it up tight. Though in hindsight, based on his knowledge of the films, Jason has enough strength to break down doors, whatever it takes to reach his victims. And that’s exactly what happened. With no weapon to defend himself, Mike backed away into a wall as Jason broke through the wooden door with crazed strength until he was well within the cabin. Mike trembled and shivered as he advanced closer with his machete, before he raised it high above his head, ready to bring it down on the boy’s head to finish him off. Mike shielded himself out of instinct, but the entire scene began to shift again. Mike noticed that he was now wearing a skeleton costume and wearing skull face paint and holding a trick-or-treat bucket shaped like a jack-’o-lantern and standing in the hallway of a house.

There was silence now which was broken by the sound of a knife smashing through the door up ahead of him. He jumped back to see a figure dressed in a dark navy blue jumpsuit and a white, emotionless human mask. Now Mike was standing in the _Halloween_ movie and before Michael Myers could reach a hand out to open the door, Mike ran down the stairs and out of the house, down the street.

“Somebody help me!” He screamed helplessly. “Please! Help me! Anybody!”

Mike cursed himself for being stupid to look behind him as he saw the Shape close behind him in a walking pace. Mike believes he’ll be able to shake him by cross through the backyards. He entered the backyard of the house where Michael killed his family on that dreaded Halloween night and fell into the empty, leaf-filled pool, seeing that the Shape had easily caught up with him. Michael took slow steps forward toward his next victim as Mike crawled backward only to hit a wall.

“No!” Mike screamed in terror, knowing there was no way to escape now.

“Michael, stop!” said a gentleman’s voice behind the Shape, who turned to see his childhood psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel Loomis standing there with a pleading look on his elderly face. “Michael, it’s me. Samuel.”

But Michael disregards him and continued towards Mike, ready to put him out of his misery while the poor boy screamed for his dear life and the Shape ignoring the orders of Loomis to end his madness.

“Michael, please stop! Stop!” Loomis shouted, drawing a gun and aiming it at Michael’s head before pulling the trigger. While Michael took the bullet, he kept going. “Stop, Michael!”

Loomis fired at him a couple more times and the Shape was starting to lose his energy from the gunshots.

“Stop!!!” screamed Loomis as he fired once more on Michael Myers’ head and finally, the silent killer collapsed onto the ground, lifeless.

Although relieved, everything shifted again and he was now standing in some kind of barn. The movie he was inside now was _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ since the telltale roar of a chainsaw gave off the position of Leatherface, the killer who lived up to his name. After another minute of being chased and almost dying, Mike was now in a swamp of the movie _Hatchet_ and the deformed ghost of Victor Crowley’s voice called out “Daddy!” into the wind as faint as a breeze. That’s when the ugly murderer appeared out of nowhere and swung his aze around at Mike, trying to cut his head off before the scene took him to the movie _Predator_ where Mike appeared in a jungle. At first, there was nothing dangerous around, save for the sound of mugs and animals native to the jungle. After Mike had walked a mile through the overcrowded vegetation, the familiar sound of a clicking rested upon his ear, making him freeze dead in his tracks. He kept still for a good few minutes before a trio of red laser lights appeared on his chest, slowly lifting up over his face and stopping at his head. Mike didn’t need a verbal sentence to know what was about to happen so he dashed away before a blast shot out from seemingly nowhere and hit the spot where he previously was. The Predator deactivated his cloaking device, making him visible before chasing after the boy, jumping from tree to tree, but as Mike was running, he now found himself in a new setting. A dark and supposedly deserted commercial spaceship of some kind. The starfreighter known as the USCSS _Nostromo_ from the film _Alien_. It was certainly quiet. Maybe a bit too quiet.

“Hello?” He called. But that was likely a bad move, since there was something on this ship that wasn’t human. Mike stopped when a spittle of drool fell from above and onto the floor. Mike dared himself not to look up, but he was compelled to do so anyway. There was the Xenomorph on the ceiling looking down at him before it pounced with it’s spine-chilling hiss. Mike run away from the Alien, which galloped after him before finally jumping on his back, pinning him to the floor like a lion would its prey. Mike whimpered as the Xenomorph drooled on him, dangling it’s haunting sharp teeth, but before it could drive it’s inner jaw through his skull, another scene took place.

Darkness all around there was at first, but then lights were switched on to reveal that Mike was duct-taped to a chair inside some kind of dark room in an undisclosed location somewhere. He tasted blood in his mouth and soon, flags went off in his head, signalling that he had a strange contraption strapped to his head. Mike struggled and fought against his restraints, but the tape was fastened in such a way that it couldn’t even tear.  He tried to scream, but the device, too, was fastening too impressively on his head that it even covered his mouth. Suddenly, an abrupt sound of static to his side, jerked his attention to a conveniently-placed television set sitting there and it showed a video recording of a haunting ventriloquist puppet that Mike was all too familiar with. That pasty-white skin, red lips, black hair, black suit and bowtie, red spirals on its cheeks and those black eyes with red pupils that almost stared right into your soul. Now it made sense that he was inside a _Saw_ movie. Then the dummy’s mouth moved to speak in an deep-pitched voice.

“ _Hello, Mike._ ” John Kramer (a.k.a. Jigsaw) spoke through the mouth of Billy the Puppet. “ _You don’t know me, but I know you. I want to play a game. Here’s what happens if you lose. The device you are wearing is hooked into your upper and lower jaw. When the timer in the back goes off, your mouth will be permanently ripped open. Think of it as a reverse bear trap. Here, I’ll show you._ ”

The camera in the video has been directed towards a mannequin wearing the same device Mike is wearing to test it out. First came the sound of ticking that got louder as it picked up the pace before the device suddenly snapped open on the dummy, smashing it to pieces as a result. Mike’s muffled screams came outward and his eyes widened with mortal terror.

Jigsaw continued saying, “ _There is only one key to open the device. It’s in the stomach of your dead cellmate. Look around, Mike. Know that I’m not lying._ ”

The captive Mike did as he was told and, to his surprise and horror, there was, in fact, a dead person lying on the ground.

“ _Better hurry up. Live or die. Make your choice._ ” And then the video ended and the television went off on it’s own.

Now Mike hasn’t exactly watched the first _Saw_ movie all the way through, but he can already tell that no scarring scene goes unchecked or unseen. Mike went full-on insane as he tried to yank his wrists free of their restraints. It took some time and a lot of massive strength, but thankfully, he finally managed to rip them from the tape and get out of the chair, but in doing so, the timer on the device was simultaneously set off, making the boy’s stomach drop and his heart skip beats. The clock was ticking, so Mike had to hurry up or else it’s die with a slip-open head. Now the dead cellmate didn’t look very dead, so he must’ve been poisoned or something like that. Mike really didn’t want to have to cut him open, but he was in a lesser of two evils situation. Plus, it was his life on the line, so he had no way around this.

Reluctantly and hesitantly, he grabbed a dagger off the floor and held onto his lunch as he raised it high, about to sink it down into his midsection. But before he did, he could’ve sworn that he saw the man’s eyes flutter open. Yeah, he was alive the whole time. Just drugged. But if only Mike realized that sooner before he forced himself to cut his way into his intestines. Now skipping the graphic, gory details, but Mike tried his best not to gag as he finally found the key in his lower intestine. The timer was ticking fast now and Mike had to act quickly or else. After some tries, he fit the key into a lock and at long last, the device fell off of his head right in the nick of time before the timer ended and the device snapped open.

Mike sat there on the floor, panting with a look of indescribable horror on his face, knowing that he just saved himself from death, but at the cost of an unconscious man’s life. Mike was so overwhelmed that he screamed at the top of his lungs, observing the blood on his hands. Suddenly, a door opened and riding inside on a small bicycle was Billy the Puppet once again in the same room as Mike and now eyeing him dead in the eye.

“ _Congratulations._ ” It spoke with Jigsaw’s chilling voice. “ _You are still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore._ ”

* * *

Wonka and Charlie finally arrived at the hallway that would lead them to the former’s office where they would talk some turkey. When they stepped out, Charlie looked green and about ready to hurl while Wonka was calm and collective, since riding on the elevator was nothing new to him.

“Just down this way, my boy. Do try to keep up.” said Wonka padding away down the hall with his cane in hand and Charlie following not too far behind. “Because we have so much to discuss.”

“Coming, Mr. Wonka.” Charlie replied.

They finally arrived at the end of the hallway over to a pair of double doors which Mr. Wonka opened up and entered through with Charlie in tow. It lead into a beautifully-constructed room with a wall full of books, the carpet pattern was a giant swirl with Wonka’s desk being in the very center of it all. There was even a large window in which Wonka could oversee the Oompa-Loompas working below.

“So, Mr. Wonka, what exactly did I win from all this?” asked Charlie.

“Well, I’m glad you asked, my friend.” Wonka began before turning towards them. “You see, long ago, I realized that I wasn’t going to be around forever and I knew marriage wasn’t an option. I mean, who’d want to make children with this fine slice, am I right? Anyway, so I needed to search for a heir to look after my factory, my beloved Oompa-Loompa, everything after I was dead and gone. Which is why I sent out the Golden Tickets to look for the perfect child. One that was the least rotten, caring, smart and, above all, selfless. And so, Charlie Bucket, I’m going to give you this entire factory.”

“You must be joking.” gasped Charlie with bulging eyes, looking at Mr. Wonka as if he had gone bonkers.

“No.” Mr. Wonka reassured. “One day when I’ve passed away, this factory will be all yours so you keep the Wonka name and company alive. You’ll be richer will more money than you necessarily needed.”

“Why….I really don’t know what to say, I mean…...I’m speechless.” Charlie stammered, unable to believe that his luck was beginning to turn for the better and yet, here he was standing before his idol, having won the entire popular chocolate factory that has taken the candy world by storm.

“You don’t have to say anything. Just listen closely for I’m about to get to the real deal.” Mr. Wonka responded with a now serious tone, lacking his usual playful and childlike demeanor for a second before pressing a button on a console on his desk that covered the giant window with blinds. Somehow, Charlie began to feel a bit uneasy by the way Wonka was giving him that eerily-wide grin.

“So, uh, what about the others, Mr. Wonka.” Charlie could feel a shake in his voice as he said this. “Will they be okay?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about them at all.” Wonka began with a somewhat chilling giggle. “They just got themselves in sticky situations, is all. However, any moment now, those distasteful brats will be nothing more than sample of my new upcoming candies and chocolate bars.”

“W-What?!” shrieked Charlie.

“I know, right?” cackled Mr. Wonka as if to tease him. “I’ve had it all planned out from the moment they first arrived. It could bring store sells to a maximum. The chances are second to none. Just picture it. Wonka’s Augustus Gloop Bar or the Everlasting Violet Beauregarde Dinner Gum. Perhaps the Veruca Salt Nut-Flavored Bits. Maybe even some Mike Teavee-Vision Chocolate. Hmm. It’s a work-in-progress. I haven’t really gotten that far, but we’ll try to work on it later on.”

“You mean you’re actually gonna kill them and turn them into your candies?!” Charlie cried in horror.

“Well, I wouldn’t go for the word “kill”. It’s a bit too spicy and dicy. Let’s just say that I’ll be “processing” them and manufacturing my candy out of them just to be safe.” Mr. Wonka explained with a nonchalant shrug. “Just in all honesty, that’s how we do things here in our bigger-than-ever chocolate factory.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Charlie.

“You see, every candy invention that I’ve conducted in my head isn’t exactly all made from just sugar and all that jazz.” explained Mr. Wonka. “I have a secret ingredient to every one of my secret candy recipes. And it’s called ‘the blood of prepubescent children’. It’s the only thing that makes my candy empire so delicious and rivaling other candy companies in the world. Because without it, my candy wouldn’t sell as much.”

“You mean that all this time, we’ve been eating candy made from people?!” Charlie screamed, even more horrified.

“I suppose so.” Mr. Wonka replied with a shit-eating grin. “But what difference does it make, anyway? Those brats aren’t worth saving or mourning over anyway. They’re selfish, greedy and have no regard for others’ feelings. It won’t matter anyway. They don’t deserve to live any longer.”  
“And…...what will be my role in all that?” Charlie fearfully asked.

“I assure you, my dear boy, you won’t be a part of “processing” any of those brats.” Mr. Wonka said, walking up behind the boy and placing gentle hands on his shoulders to comfort him. “You will, however, offer me your opinions on what delicious flavors to give them and design the wrappings and such they will be placed in. And don’t worry, everything will make more sense in the future and it’ll be all worth your while.”

“I…...I-I-I don’t know.” Charlie whimpered, scarred with such a shocking revelation. “I just don’t r-really know.”

“Give it some time, Charlie.” Mr. Wonka said before turning his back to him. “But just know that in a few hours, those naughty, naughty, naughty little children will be nothing more than delectable confectionary that the entire world will enjoy. Oh, I can almost taste it now. The world will love us. Wouldn’t you-?”

But when Wonka turned back around to face Charlie once more, he was no longer standing there. Confused and gobsmacked, he darted his head all around to see where the boy could have disappeared to in so little time. But he was nowhere in sight. But then, he noticed that the doorway to his office has been flung open and slowly closing on it’s own. Words could not describe the chocolatier’s rage when he distinctly discerned the fleeing form of Charlie, hightailing down the hallway in terror. Wonka’s face morphed into a furious glare of burning rage at seeing that Charlie stole the opportunity to escape with his life when his back was turned.

“Get him!” screamed Mr. Wonka with such haunting fury that would frighten the wits out of anyone. The Oompa-Loompas standing outside of his office over his roaring demand and took off running after Charlie to get him back.

As the poor boy was racing toward the elevator, he thought about the terrifying truth behind the man that the entire world knew and loved. Yes, his hunch was proven correct, but in the very worst way possible. It turned out that Mr. Willy Wonka, was, in fact, a serial killer. He would lure children to his factory to kill them and make them into his candy that the whole world was eating. It was disgusting to even think about. Charlie just couldn’t believe that after all this time, Mr. Wonka was not the man he knew him as. But how was he going to explain this to his father and grandfather if he ever saw them again?

But what mattered right now was getting far away from Mr. Wonka and hopefully try to rejoin the adults and get the hell out of the factory while he still can. But first he needed to make a stop to the Television Chocolate room and see if he can help Mike out of his shrunken situation. After finally making it to the Glass Elevator, he rushed inside and the doors closed, but he could see the Oompa-Loompas fast approaching. Quickly, Charlie searched for the button to where he needed to go and pressed just in the nick of time before the tiny pygmies had the time to stop him.

The elevator darted away, carrying Charlie with it all the way to the Television Chocolate room. Despite the speed, he tried to keep his balance and hold on tight as the fast-acting contraption directed him all around the recesses of the factory. All the while, he was wondering how his father, Grandpa Joe and the adults were doing on their own tour.


End file.
